'Sugartime!' to Hit Bookstores
Little, Brown to turn controversial episode into a book next year
By Hal Stucker -- School Library Journal, 3/1/2005
Despite controversy over a recent episode of the popular children's TV show Postcards from Buster, which featured lesbian mothers, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers still plans to publish a book based on the contentious episode as part of a Postcards series planned for release this spring.
"We will treat the adaptation the same as we have the other books in the series," said Little, Brown Publisher David Ford in a statement. "We have not yet received the manuscript, but I can assure you that we will not censor the material."
Buster, a spinoff character from the highly successful Arthur cartoon series, is an animated rabbit who travels the country visiting real-life families to teach children about diversity in America. But PBS in late January decided against distributing an episode called Sugartime! to its 349 member stations after new education secretary Margaret Spellings and conservative groups criticized the program for including a same-sex couple. In the episode, which was scheduled to appear February 2, Buster visits two children on a family farm in Vermont, a state where civil unions are allowed. Since the uproar, 45 PBS affiliates have decided to air the episode.
"I'm very happy that my publisher doesn't want to censor this series," says Marc Brown, creator of Buster and his famous best friend, Arthur, and executive director of the Postcards series. "I was shocked that even before she was officially sworn in, Secretary Spelling decided to denounce a cartoon celebrating the diversity of America's children. I was further disappointed in PBS for endorsing the censorship rather than confronting it." The book version of Sugartime! is scheduled for release in the spring of 2006.
Debbie Abilock, editor of Knowledge Quest, the journal of the American Association of School Librarians, and a member of PBS's TeacherSource Advisory Group that advises the network on how to best serve the needs of educators, says controversies like this could have a powerfully chilling effect on public television overall. "PBS performs an incredible service for school curriculums and for teachers and school librarians across the country," she says. "Shows on PBS are carefully designed to be as useful as possible for schools and educators. Librarians need to speak out, to remind Americans that the work public television does reflects the depth and richness of our society, and that we need to support that richness."
