Posted on 09/12/2009 2:51:31 AM PDT by myknowledge
PRIMARY school students have been banned from reading the teen cult classic Twilight books because they are too racy and contradict religious beliefs.
Librarians have stripped the books from shelves in some junior schools because they believe the content is too sexual and goes against religious beliefs.
They even have asked parents not to let kids bring their own copies of Stephenie Meyer's smash hit novels _ which explore the stormy love affair between a teenage girl and a vampire _ to school.
Santa Sabina College at Strathfield was so concerned about the Twilight craze that teachers ran a seminar for Year 6 students to discuss sexual and supernatural themes in the books. The school's head librarian Helen Schutz said:
(Excerpt) Read more at dailytelegraph.com.au ...
This argument strikes at the heart of what I do — I’m a school librarian.
I have to buy books to which I’m philosophically opposed. It’s important that I present multiple sides of issues and I make sure that I’m not imposing my political/religious opinions on my students. However, it’s also important that I purchase items that are age appropriate for my young patrons (elementary school). That would not include the Twilight series. You can call it nanny state or banning, but the reality is I serve 4-11 year olds. Some items belong in middle school and high school, and not in my library.
The only thing you need to teach a child is that mom & dad will be their guiding light of morality and God provided them with the intellect to understand that they do not need the nanny state to control both them and their parents.
You see, in our family, God and Family is always more important and trustworthy than the Nanny State. However, I understand that some may wish for the Nanny State to take control.
You don't need a librarian to pick and choose which books to put on the shelves?
Yes, it is a librarians job to select which books go on the shelves and it is the parents job to control what their kids read, but it is not the job of nanny state community activists to dictate what my kids can and cannot read.
What I see are some Catholic schools and what might be private schools deciding they don't want to put a particular book in the library.
That’s true. As long as their bias is right up front (”as a transgendered male-to-female wilderness hiker and Santeria priestess in touch with my inner antelope...”) I don’t mind, at least I can tell where they’re coming from.
It’s a ploy to get kids to read the books.
You are correct - every school in the article is a private school.
St Anthony's is a systemic Catholic school run by the Catholic Education Office of the Archdiocese of Sydney, Santa Sabina is an independent Catholic school run by the Dominican Sisters, and Queenswood is an independent non-denominational Christian school. Santa Sabina and Queenswood are among Sydney's most prestigious and well regarded private schools. Parents choose such schools because they want those schools to help them in supporting their decisions as to how their children are raised and what they are exposed to.
And that is fine. However, in this country, we do not need the Nanny State Sycophants dictating what books can and cannot be in out public libraries.
Come on mom and dad, all you need to do is take responsibility for what your kid reads and let the books remain in the library
states that the books should remain in the library. If these private schools want to take these books on and replace them with others that's not only the right but the responsibility of the librarians to decide.
Sounds here like you're one of those nanny sycophants you claim to despise trying to dictate to these schools what they should read.
Why that is an odd assertion.
Simply because a book exists in a library, does not mean that the librarian who ordered the book is dictating what the kids should read. Instead, the kids and the their parents can decide what is read.
It all seems rather simple. For example, while there may be things you object to broadcast on the TV, it does not mean that you are forced to watch.
Not really. You claim that certain books should remain in the library even though the librarians of these private schools don't want it there to be accessible for reading.
Sounds like you are one of those nanny activists who want to impose your wishes on a school system, even a private one.
I say give the librarians the freedom to decide what takes up their limited shelf space. This is in no way censorship. Picking and choosing books is the responsibility of the librarian.
It appears that we agree on the issue since in this very same thread I have said that it should be the librarians, and not outsiders that decide what can and cannot be put on the shelves.
However, the most important thing here is that helping children develop not only reading skills, but the habit of reading in the most important issue. And if that means that kids read Harry Potter or Twilight, then libraries and librarians are succeeding in their work.
Then I don't know why you stated the books should remain in the library. The librarians were involved in the decision to remove them.
iI was discussing my overall view of how libraries should be operated and not necessarily and one specific library in Australia.
1. Permit librarians to decide what books go into the library.
2. Keep Do Gooder citizens out of the process of what books should not be in the library.
The reason for number two is that if we allow one “Do Gooder” to decide what books must be pulled from the shelf, then we must allow every “Do Gooder” dictate what books should be pulled. If we allow for that, at the end of the process, there would be no books in the library.
Yeah, and you were airing an opinion which went against the valid procedures the libararians were following in the article.
Fact is, all librarians have to pick and choose, even those who work for adult libraries. They can't have all books. If some want to cut back on the fantastical literature and go for a different kind of lit, for example, that's their choice.
we allow one “Do Gooder” to decide what books must be pulled from the shelf, then we must allow every “Do Gooder”
No. "We" don't decide. The local systems do. YOU shouldn't be dictating except to your own kid's school. Otherwise you are the "do-gooder" you claim to dislike.
No, I should not even dictate that in my own kid's school since other parents that may be boneheads will also have the same power.
Or were you waiting from some pie-in-the-sky authority to decide?
I’ve never read any of them - I figured Meyer was just capitalizing on Buffy’s success. Are they any good? The guy from the movie isn’t nearly as hot as Angel, way too effeminate.
That’s GREAT. What else have you written? I’d thank you for saving me the 20 bucks, but I wasn’t going to spend it anyway.
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