Censorship Roundup

Fairfax County, VA: The Fairfax County Public School district is deliberating 18 book challenges filed in October by Richard Ess, a member of the Fairfax County group Parents Against Bad Books in Schools. Ess objected to the books' profanity and sexual content. Paul Regnier, coordinator of Fairfax schools, says it's the largest number of challenges the district has faced at one time. The titles in question include Francesca Lia Block's Girl Goddess and Witch Baby, Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War, James Clavell's Shogun, Walter Dean Myers's Fallen Angels, and Alice Walker's The Color Purple. A Fairfax school's spokesperson says that it will cost the district $2,600 to review each book, including staff time; the cost of reviewing all 18 books will approach $50,000, reported the Northern Virginia Journal.

Livingston, MT: The Livingston school board voted in November to remove Rolling Stone magazine from Park High School's library. Principal Woody Jundt had proposed the ban in September, saying that the magazine promotes violence, sex, and illegal drug use (see November 2002 , News, p. 25). In a 5–3 vote, the board overturned the district library committee's September 12 decision to retain the magazine, but allow only those students with parental permission to read it. Trustee Jim Braley told Montanaforum.com that "many of [Rolling Stone's] articles are contrary to the curriculum."

Oregon, WI: A school committee has decided that Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas (HarperCollins, 2002), a novel about a boy-crazy 14-year-old girl, will remain in the Oregon Middle School library, despite a parent's complaint that the book is "smut." The committee stated November 4 that although some portions of Louise Rennison's book might be sexually suggestive, they don't cross the line into sexual explicitness and are similar to what students are exposed to in magazines and movies targeting their age group. Parent Linda Rutherford, who filed a formal complaint with the district in October, told the local Capital Times that she had appealed the decision. A character in the book calls breasts "nunga-nungas," because, he explains, "if you get hold of a girl's breast and pull it out and then let it go, it goes nunga-nunga-nunga."