Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Sample Challenge Letters

I'd like to share a letter written to my library regarding It's Perfectly Normal from my friend Mary Jo, aka Mom with a Message. Mary Jo speaks on the topic of human sexuality and her letter reflects her expertise:

Please remove the book "It's Perfectly Normal" from your juvenile shelves! It contains pornographic and sexually mature text and graphics that no child in the latency period should be reading. As the mother of four children and a human sexuality educator, I find it appalling that CADL has this book on its shelves, where innocent children can be introduced to things beyond their years. This book usurps the rights of parents and the privilege that parents have to tell their own children about the beauty of sexuality when the parents deem appropriate. I eagerly await your response and your assurance that this book has been removed from your shelves, and not just put into the adolescent section where teen boys and girls can further their interests in premature sexual activity. This book could lead some to an addiction to pornography, which is downgrading to the human race. I am hoping that CADL acts responsibly to the numerous requests it will get from parents about this abhorrent book. There is NOTHING normal about any book which seeks to rob children of their innocence and that which forces parents to give information to their children out of fear that if they don't, their children will be "molested" by their own public library, which should be a safe place for all.

1 comment:

Janine Cate said...

I just went and check my library's online catalog. They have 6 copies of this book in the children's section.

Yuck. That's one of the reasons we don't let our kids unsupervised in the library. There is a lot of really bad stuff there, even in the children's section.

My husband talked to the children's librarian about removing a book about euthanasia. The librarian said that it was in the children's section, (as opposed to the teen or adult section) because the book was written on a 4th to 6th grade reading level.

Don't you just love to see your tax dollars at work.