A New Jersey public library has removed Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology (Alyson, 2000) from its collection. Nobody challenged the book; library director Gail Sweet pulled it regardless.
Edited by Amy Sonnie of the Banned Librarian, Revolutionary Voices was named by School Library Journal in 2001 as one of the best adult books for high school students and was celebrated by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) as "the first creative resource by and for queer and questioning youth of every color, class, religion, gender and ability."
Way to make the gay kids feel unwelcome and ostracized, Burlington County Library System. As if it isn't hard enough for teens; now a good resource gets taken away. And it's not just gay kids, either; it's kids with a gay parent or a gay friend who want to understand more. There is not nearly enough good literature on this subject, and by pulling this book the library is doing a disservice to its patrons.
Most of the media reports have been substantially false, and the School Library Journal story falls in that category.
ReplyDeleteThere are more accurate reports, one I discuss here:
"Revolutionary Readings Review: Go See It"
I haven't read the book, so I don't know whether its removal was justified or not. Policy is difficult to enforce sometimes; one person's pornography is another person's kind of shadowy picture suggesting anal sex without showing it explicitly. Thank you for your comment and link to your post on this particular subject: it's always good to see another side of the story.
ReplyDelete