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From the Salt Lake Tribune:

The district returned the book, In Our Mothers’ House, by Patricia Polacco, to the regular shelves of four school libraries Monday in response to a lawsuit over the issue filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Utah in November on behalf of a Kaysville parent, said Chris Williams, Davis spokesman.

Previously.

• The Glass Castle will not be removed from the freshman honors English summer reading list in Traverse City, Michigan. (Previously.)
• Meanwhile, in response to complaints from parents in Pennsylvania's East Penn School District, Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test has been removed from the 10th grade summer reading list, and Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep has been moved from the 9th grade summer reading list to the 12th grade AP English summer reading list. Neither book was required reading, and both books will remain in the school library. (Previously.)

From Jacket Copy:

When the book was challenged, it was removed from shelves and went before an internal committee for review. That committee advised the Greenville County Library to retain "Neonomicon" and return it to circulation. However, the head of the library system disagreed and decided to remove the novel from the library's collection.

Previously.

...in a Michigan high school:

It never dawned on Heather Campbell that she'd one day work to get a book banned from a school's curriculum.

But Campbell found herself in just that position after she read Jeannette Walls' memoir "The Glass Castle," a book assigned to her freshman daughter over the summer as part of the 9th grade honors English course at Traverse City West Senior High School.

...in an Ohio school district:

The book “The Perks Of Being A Wallflower” is billed as a coming-of-age novel, but some parents in the Grandview Heights City School District want the book banned because they said it is “too hot” for high schoolers.

From the Seattle PI:

The lawsuit claims it's unconstitutional to require elementary school students have a parent's permission to check out "In Our Mothers' House," a picture book featuring three adopted children growing up with two mothers.

"I was shocked when I heard that a handful of parents had made a decision about whether everyone else's kids could have access to this book," said Tina Weber, a district parent who is listed as a plaintiff along with her two children. "Our job as parents is to make sure we teach our children about our values. We can do that without imposing our personal views on the rest of the school community."

From the Sacramento Bee's Report Card blog:

Rocklin Unified Superintendent Kevin Brown overturned the high school committee's decision in October, saying the call should have been made by a committee of districtwide representatives.

Brown said Friday that the districtwide committee's findings to allow the book are final, although "if the complaining party wishes to appeal the findings, they can take it to the next level and it goes to the (school) board."

Previously.

From The High Point Enterprise:

Catherine Barnette complained several weeks ago about the book she found on a supplemental reading list. She again urged the school board “to return integrity to the curriculum of our schools.” The book has been challenged in school districts in California, Iowa, Massachusetts and several other states because of the use of profanity and sex scenes.

...

“This book denigrates our values,” said Northwest Guilford High School student Matthew Cook. “I choose carefully what I read, and this denigrates Christian values.” 

The protesters also said “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. offended them. The Vonnegut book questions religion.

If you are careful about what you choose what you read, why not pick SOMETHING ELSE from the SUPPLEMENTAL reading list, rather than asking that the school tailor the list specifically to your particular worldview?

From the library's website:

After posting on our website 24 hours in advance, the Board met and held an emergency meeting on Monday, October 22, 2012. All nine members were present.  We had a long and thoughtful discussion, reviewing  the comments on the Request for Reconsideration form for “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” and our Board Policies regarding the reconsideration process.  The Library has not had a book challenged in many years and none in the time of the current administration. We wanted to make sure that attention was taken to following procedure and policies of the Library. In the end, with all due respect, we have decided to keep the book in the collection.

• There's a new edition of Twas the Night Before Christmas with all references to Santa's pipe removed. Speaking of smoking and guys named Clement, I'm still annoyed about that Clement Hurd picture, but whatever, it's been seven years, so I should probably move on.
• Mainers: Raina Telgemeier will be at Casablanca Comics (the one in Portland) on Saturday!
• The Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Fremont, CA, has started a book club devoted to the books rejected by the local school district's curriculum committee: Bastard Out of Carolina and Angels in America.
• An Open Letter to the Dean of Sweet Valley University: "In fact, is it just me, or do a lot of people in Sweet Valley, and particularly at your campus, get murdered or almost murdered?  And raped? And drugged? And contract brain tumors? And experience addiction? And commit suicide? I’m worried your promotional materials are not doing the positive sell you might think they are."
• Frank Cottrell Boyce wins Guardian children's fiction prize.
• From an open letter from the Kids' Right to Read and the ALA to the Rocklin Unified School District: "The issues and themes dealt with in “Apt Pupil”—the atrocities of World War II, violence, a power struggle, corruption—may not be suitable for all readers. If the parent feels the book is not suitable for her child, she is free to guide him to a different book, but her views are not shared by all parents and students." (Previously.)
• I had no idea that Edward Lear also did super-realistic paintings. Sadly, the upcoming book of them is INSANELY EXPENSIVE.
• GAAAAH. More GAAAAAAH. And by, GAAAAAAH, obvs, I mean AWESOME.
• Want some lists of Canadian novels? Then you're in luck!
• I'm thinking I might enjoy The Hobbit even more than I did the Lord of the Rings movies, if only due to my undying lurrrve for Martin Freeman!:

In PA, it's Tom Wolfe and Curtis Sittenfeld:

Slifka spoke out against both books at the Sept. 24 board meeting. The Policy 109 challenges she filed set in motion a formal committee review process that will end with a recommendation on each book to the East Penn School Board.

But what was never mentioned at that meeting was a challenge that was brought against “Acid Test” in 2007, according to East Penn Superintendent of Schools Thomas L. Seidenberger. “Prep” was challenged in 2011. Both challenges were made under Policy 109.

And in CA, it's Stephen King:

“Different Seasons” is a novel containing a collection of four Stephen King stories, which includes well-known stories “Shawshank Redemption” and “Stand By Me.” But the graphic scene covering a page and a half in “Apt Pupil” could get the whole book banned from Rocklin school libraries.

“Basically they’re judging entire book on one story,” said Amanda Wong.

From the NY Daily News:

Corey Michael Dalton, a fiction writer and editor with the Saturday Evening Post Society, will spend the entirety of Banned Books Week (Sep. 30-Oct. 6) inside a "prison" made fully out banned books from previous years. Dalton's week long project will take place at the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in Indianapolis, and its goal is to "protest the treatment of Vonnegut's masterpiece, "Slaughterhouse-Five," by a Midwestern school district, according to a press release.

I kinda think it would make more sense if he was kept away from the books. Being surrounded by banned books suggests that he's trapped by the information, rather than being kept from it. Or something.

There's a series at the Missourian covering a public records project that explores recent book challenges in Missouri schools.

Choice quote from the article about the aftermath of a 2010 challenge in Republic that ultimately resulted in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and Sarah Ockler's Twenty Boy Summer being relegated to a locked cabinet, only available to parents:

Willis decided not to purchase a new book by Ockler, because the author's name raised a “red flag.”

Which is so sad, as Bittersweet is totally adorbs.

From Mercury News:

"I'm challenging them on their biases," said Hu, who twice before submitted Allison's semiautobiographical novel and National Book Award nominee for district approval. Even with the endorsement of a district textbook committee, the board voted it down, as it did in 2009 and 2010.

Last year, the board rejected her nomination of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America," a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about AIDS in the 1980s.

She wanted to use the books in a 12th-grade AP English class: one of the trustees who voted the books down suggested using The Color Purple instead, because it's "more uplifting".

The inspiration for the story is a heartbreaker:

(via)

...according to the Library of Congress, who offered this caveat:

“This list is a starting point,” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. “It is not a register of the ‘best’ American books – although many of them fit that description. Rather, the list is intended to spark a national conversation on books written by Americans that have influenced our lives, whether they appear on this initial list or not.”

Here's their list.

And here's their blog post asking for your life-changing reads. (Mine, as I've mentioned here before, have mainly been children's books. It was less about the specific stories or mind-blowing writing for me, and more about realizing that there were a lot of other kids out there who were experiencing the same stuff. It sounds like a small thing, but it isn't. Realizing that you aren't alone? Pretty freaking huge, actually.)

Relatedly, the NCAC has created a short slideshow highlighting some of the titles on the LOC list that were banned at one point or another:

...to The Family Book and In Our Mothers' House:

Good lord, my tabs are out of control again:

• Developing Merida.
• Maria Tatar on reading racist stories with children: "Trust the child, not the tale, and reading together can become all the more interesting."
• Defective Yeti is playing Zork I over the the next couple of months, and has created a couple of Twitterbots so we can follow along.
• Tattoos of The Little Prince. Sigh. I continue to be the only person on the planet who isn't a fan.
• WANT: Star Trek-themed home theater.
• Community art show. Yes, THAT Community.
• The lady who challenged Alan Moore's Neonomicon has refused to return it to the library.

On The Dirty Cowboy in Pennsylvania:

Despite community outcry, national media coverage, letters from the American Library Association and the National Coalition Against Censorship and numerous pleas to reconsider, including a petition signed by more than 250 local parents and taxpayers, the board refused to take up the matter again, citing concerns of causing a countercontroversy. 

Although ACSD board President Tom Tschudy stated that he felt “reasonable minds can disagree,” he asked one parent if he would like him to bring Hustler magazine into the elementary library. 

Is comparing a children’s book about taking a bath to Hustler magazine a reasonable comparison?

On The Family Book in Illinois:

Erie, Illinois Mayor Marcia Smith now has said on the record that elementary-school-aged children being raised by same-sex parents are welcome in the town.

Previously, Mayor Smith would not say whether or not such families were welcome.

On In Our Mothers’ House in Utah:

She argues that limiting access to the book is sending a message to children of same-sex families that their families are not OK.

"Kids who live with straight parents, they can go to any old shelf and can pull out a book about families that look like theirs," she said. With LGBT-themed books behind the counter, it makes kids wonder "what is wrong with my family that books about us have to be back against the shelf? Are we a bad family?"

From the Baltimore Sun:

Mary Hastler, director of the Harford County Public Library, read James' first two novels before determining that the series doesn't meet her library's selection criteria. She hasn't read the third novel.

"These books are a very different take on traditional romances," she said.

"In my personal opinion, it's almost like a how-to manual in terms of describing bondage and submissive relationships. A lot of the reviews that came out very publicly and quickly identified these books as 'mommy porn.' Since our policy is that we don't buy porn, we made the decision not to purchase the series."

I don't know if the library director is equating erotica and porn—as far as I know, 50 Shades is considered erotica—but her library very definitely stocks erotica.

La la la la la.

From USAToday:

Chuck Nelson said Friday that County Manager Howard Tipton and Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten, who oversees library operations, told him during separate briefings Thursday and Friday that the novel once more will be available to library patrons. Details are being worked out.

_________________________________

*Or, well, probably returning. A paragraph later, the article says that the county spokesman said that 'no decision has been made'. Thanks, USAToday, for being massively confusing.

• Due to the recent challenge to Terry Trueman's Stuck in Neutral, Humble Independent School District (TX) is going to re-visit their policy on supplemental reading material.
• By a 4-2 vote, Nickel and Dimed will stay in the curriculum at the high school in Easton, PA.
• The Executive Editor of the Broken Arrow Ledger (OK) has written an editorial in which he argues that, due to its content, Carter Finally Gets It doesn't belong in a school library. At one point, he says, "It is supposedly a recommended read for 8- to 10-year-old students. Are you kidding me?", which suggests to me that he hasn't even read the book that he's railing against. Which seems like a less-than-brilliant move for a journalist to make.

Well... I can't really argue with the challenger's complaint: after all, Carter Finally Gets It is super-raunchy.

But it's also totally hilarious* and I loved it.

Therefore, I'm happy to report that the book passed muster with a school-wide committee, a district committee, and the board of education, and so it will stay on the shelves of Oklahoma's Childers Middle School library:

"While the (school) committee does not support or promote the use of questionable language or all of the decisions made by the characters in the book, the committee did not find the book to be pervasively vulgar or completely lacking in suitability," Fichtner said.

[ETA: Another article about the challenge.]

__________________________________________

*And sweet, realistic, embarrassing, and adorable.

...an elementary school in Illinois to re-visit a decades-old decision to pull In the Night Kitchen from its library for "nudity without a purpose".

Coupled with finishing Code Name Verity last night, this has been a supremely weepy morning.

The New York Times:

A largely self-taught illustrator, Mr. Sendak was at his finest a shtetl Blake, portraying a luminous world, at once lovely and dreadful, suspended between wakefulness and dreaming. In so doing, he was able to convey both the propulsive abandon and the pervasive melancholy of children’s interior lives.

The Guardian:

He was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Polish Jewish immigrant parents and was aware, in his early teens, of the death of much of his extended family in the Holocaust. The terrors of his childhood specifically, and childhood more generally, flow through his work. "I refuse to lie to children," he said in an interview with the Guardian last year. "I refuse to cater to the bullshit of innocence."

The Christian Science Monitor:

"So I write books that seem more suitable for children, and that's OK with me. They are a better audience and tougher critics. Kids tell you what they think, not what they think they should think."

The Washington Post:

Together, Max, Mickey and Ida represent the fearful idea that parents are unaware of the crises their children face, Mr. Sendak told the Times of London. “It happens right before your eyes as a parent,” he said, referring to those moments when children must fend for themselves. “You know that, and you don't see it. And that's the point that just totally fascinates me. Something colossal has just brushed by that's going to change a child's life and you might have helped — if you'd looked!”

The Independant:

Sendak has been quoted as saying, “My gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson and Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart.”

People:

In a 1988 PEOPLE interview, Sendak defended his lifelong view that kids are tough enough for the grimmest fairy tales. "Parents shouldn't assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly. Kids don't. We do."