Iowa Library Reaffirms Ban on 'Sari Says'

Board votes to keep teen-advice book off shelves, claiming it has sexually explicit content

Kathy Ishizuka -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2002

The James Kennedy Public Library in Dyersville, IA, has upheld a decision to ban Sari Says: The Real Dirt on Everything from Sex to School (HarperCollins, 2001).

The library's Board of Trustees voted August 12 to reaffirm a June decision to return the book to its vendor, defeating a motion by board member Kori Mahoney to rescind the ban. "I believe our decision was fundamentally flawed because it was not based on enough information," she told the Associated Press (AP). Mahoney believes some board members had not read the book when they voted to remove it from the library for sexually explicit content. Mahoney had abstained from the June 26 vote because she had not read it herself.

In the book, Teen People columnist Sari Locker answers questions on a wide variety of issues from fashion and peer pressure to how to talk to parents about sex and alternatives to intercourse.

About 30 residents attended the meeting and joined in discussing the book with board members for more than an hour. "Censorship is ignorance—we cannot censor any books," said Dyersville resident Dan Sogaard. Other community members called the book "disgusting."

Board member Betty Anne Scherrman told AP that the board did not equate pulling the book with censorship. Sari Says had been selected by the children's librarian and purchased with the approval of library director Shirley Vonderhaar before its removal.

The ban has attracted national media attention, and library board chairman Wayne Hersen says he's been flooded by e-mails from around the country, with opinion coming down on both sides of the issue.

The National Coalition Against Censorship's executive director, Joan E. Bertin, called the board's decision impermissible under the First Amendment.