Four-Letter Words

What to do when a recommended book includes offensive language

By Pat Scales -- School Library Journal, 11/1/2006

I’m an elementary school media specialist in a very conservative community, and I’d like to add Louis Sachar’s Small Steps (Delacorte, 2006) to my library collection. But I’m worried that the book may be challenged because it contains the word “crap.” What should I do?

There’s always a chance that someone will challenge our book selection choices. But words that a potential censor might find offensive shouldn’t affect our purchasing decisions, as long as the language isn’t gratuitous. A librarian should make an objective decision about a book’s appeal to her students. Small Steps is recommended for grades five to eight, which means the book is deemed appropriate for those in upper elementary grades. Fans of Holes by the same author will want to read this companion novel about Armpit’s fate as he sets out to overcome past demons. Young readers shouldn’t be denied access to this novel because of a potentially offensive word. However, as a precautionary measure, find out what your school or district’s selection policy says about books with offensive language. You likely won’t need it, but make sure there’s a materials reconsideration procedure should a challenge occur.

A sixth-grade teacher at my affluent private school wants to teach The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 (Delacorte, 1995) by Christopher Paul Curtis. But a parent, an African-American lawyer, objects because she doesn’t want her daughter to know that the Civil Rights Movement took place. How can I help?

All teachers should have complete freedom to select novels for classroom study as long as they adhere to school guidelines. I suggest arranging a meeting between the parent and teacher so he can explain his lesson plan and why he chose the novel. Ask the parent to offer her legal expertise by making a presentation to the class about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This type of parental involvement usually turns a complaint into something more constructive. If this doesn’t work, offer the student an alternative novel while her classmates complete their study of Curtis’s novel.

By the way, you may want to inform the parent that the novel isn’t about the Civil Rights Movement. The bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, is a pivotal event in the novel, but the book is really about the relationship between two brothers and their journey toward brotherly love. If your school doesn’t have guidelines for selecting books for classroom study, check out sample guidelines offered by the National Council of Teachers of English at www.ncte.org/about/issues/censorship.

A very active member of the PTA has asked that I place the very popular Philip Pullman books on a restricted shelf in my middle school library and require parental consent to read them—all because they deal with evil forces. What should I say?

The answer is simple: No! And there’s legal precedent to back you up. In 2002, the board of the Cedarville School District in Arkansas voted 3-2 in favor of students needing parental permission to borrow Harry Potter books. The parents of an avid Potter fan took the school board to court because they felt it was a violation of their daughter’s constitutional rights. U.S. District Judge Jimm Larry Hendren ruled, “Regardless of the personal distaste with which these individuals regard 'witchcraft,’ it is not properly within their power and authority as members of the defendant’s school board to prevent the students at Cedarville from reading about it.” Cedarville students now have free access to Harry Potter and any number of fantasy titles. Parents can prevent their children from reading certain novels, or even entire genres, but librarians don’t exist to help parents police their children.

Refer to the Library Bill of Rights (www.ala.org/work/freedom/lbr.html) for more information about supporting an open access policy. “Restricted Access to Library Materials: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights” (adopted by ALA’s council February 2, 1973, and amended June 30, 2004) states, “All proposals for restricted access collections should be carefully scrutinized to ensure that the purpose is not to suppress a viewpoint or to place a barrier between certain patrons and particular content.”