The board of the Grapevine-Colleyville school district in Euless, Texas, voted July 12 to retain Tiger Flowers by Patricia Quinlan on its media-center shelves, despite the concerns of the parent of an elementary-school student that children reading the title needed adult supervision because of its themes of death, AIDS, and homosexuality. “All you have to do is tell the librarian, and your child will not be able to check out that book,” board member Barb Kenney explained in the July 15 Dallas Morning News.
Brenda Hurst had appealed a May reconsideration-committee decision declining her request that the book be moved to the school counselor’s office. Still, she is pleased to have had her concerns aired publicly. “If nothing else, I hope more parents realize that it is their responsibility to raise their kids as they see fit, and the school district is all too willing to raise them for you should you decide not to stay involved,” Hurst said.
Posted July 19, 1999.