Roanoke Schools Temporarily Removes ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower'
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By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 11/04/2009
Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower (MTV, 1999) is in trouble again—and this time it’s been removed from shelves as it goes through the review process outlined by Virginia’s Roanoke County Public Schools.
“At this point, the review process is still underway,” says Chuck Lionberger, community relations specialist for the school system.
This book challenge began when an English teacher at William Byrd High School loaned a student a personal copy of Wallflower, which tells the tale of a high school freshman who handles issues of drugs, abuse, and teenage sexuality. That student loaned the book to her boyfriend, whose father objected to the nature of the material and filed a challenge. The book has yet to be returned, says Lorraine Lange, superintendent of the Roanoke County Public Schools.
While a few copies of the book—one of the top 10 most challenged in America—did sit on the shelves of three out of five high schools in the district, those have now been handed over for their librarians to read as they complete their review process, which should be by mid-November, says Lange.
Although book challenges are rare in Roanoke Schools, Jane James, who has been the school system’s media supervisor for the past 31 years, says there have been four books permanently banned from shelves during her tenure. Two were deemed inappropriate for that age level, and two were nonfiction that were outdated and lacked reviews, she says. “The vast majority [of challenges] were put back on the shelves,” says James.
Lionberger asserts that Wallflower has not been banned—but its removal for an unspecified time as media specialists review the book does lessen its access to students, teachers, and staff.
“A parent has all the right in the world to direct their child’s reading, but not to make decisions for other parents and for their community,” says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, acting director for the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “While most of these decisions are made in favor of the book returning to the library, it doesn’t take away the fact that an individual demanded a book be taken away from the library. And that is censorship.”
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Lorraine Lange, superintendent of the Roanoke County Public Schools. |
“I think the first teacher got so much publicity when the parent contacted a Web site,” says Lange. “Some younger teachers got scared and didn’t want that to happen to them.”
For now, however, Wallflower’s fate lies with three media specialists, one from each school level in Roanoke County, who will read the book and reviews, seek advice from experts on the material, consider the standards for selecting the book, and then discuss and file their recommendation, according to the Roanoke County Public Schools Administrative Regulations.
“When we’re talking about a school library, the conversation is should it be on the shelf,” says Caldwell-Stone. “And a library should ultimately be about choice.”
