“Frankly, I believe it is just the opposite.” Attempt To Ban Bone Due To Bad Behavior Fails

The CBLDF's sleek new blog set-up drove attention yesterday to local media reports about a mother's attempt to have Bone removed from her local school library shelves. Ramona DeLay of the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district south of Minneapolis/St. Paul made the request after reading her son's library take-home and objecting to what she felt was smoking, drinking, gambling and sexual situations in its pages.

The meeting took place April 27. DeLay made her case, and then a media specialist was brought in who argued to have the school keep the series, citing its enormous critical reputation as an all-ages work and drawing a distinction between DeLay deciding not to have it in her home and actually removing it from the library shelves based on DeLay's objection. A spokesman from Scholastic, the book's publisher in the color editions found in most school libraries, also spoke at the meeting. A pair of school kids brought by their mother to see the process told the local reporter they hoped it would say.

The vote was 10-1 for keeping the series on library shelves.

Jeff Smith's Boneville blog has a brief report up about the incident, including the fact that they were heading to C2E2 when the story broke and the content of a letter Jeff Smith wrote on behalf of his work. That letter was read at the meeting. That letter has a flat-out denial of any sexual situations involved, a citation in general of the saga's award-winning status and effectiveness with kids, notes that no one else has ever complained, and describes the booze and tobacco in the story as props appropriate to the medieval setting.
 
posted 9:45 am PST | Permalink
 

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