Censorship Roundup
Staff -- School Library Journal, 4/1/2003
Leeds, England: A West Yorkshire nursery school has banned the story of the three little pigs from classrooms for fear of offending Muslims. Barbara Harris, headmistress at Park Road Junior Infant and Nursery School, told teachers to remove all books featuring pigs from classrooms with children under age seven. Harris cited her concern for the "religious sensitivities" of 60 percent of the school's students who are Muslim, reported the London Daily Mail. Islamic leaders condemned the school's decision, saying Muslims are prohibited from eating pork—not from reading books about pigs. Nick Seaton of the Campaign for Real Education says, "This is political correctness gone mad." The banned books, including Babe (Crown, 1985) by Dick King-Smith, are available to students at the school library.
Murfreesboro, TN: A book review committee is considering whether to remove Alice on the Outside (S & S/Atheneum, 1999) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor from Rutherford County school libraries, after a parent cited the book as too sexually explicit. Sonja Sullivan complained about the book after her 12-year-old daughter checked it out from Blackman Middle School. Alice is geared for grades 8–12, Maura Mandyck, a librarian at Nashville Public Library, told the Tennessean. Blackman Middle School serves grades six through eight.
