A Wisconsin elementary-school teacher has asked the School District of Waukesha to ban the Guinness World Records 2001 from all 17 elementary-school libraries because the book includes a photo of a model in what editors claim to be the world’s most valuable bikini. Also cited by Banting Elementary School teacher Mel Culver was a photo of another model in a diamond-studded bra and panties and one of former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell in a short tube dress—all of which Culver claimed were included in the book “to provide sexual entertainment,” according to the March 12 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
“Boys are asking to go to the library for the sole purpose of looking at these pictures,” Culver wrote in the complaint she filed February 19. She added, “These pictures obviously are not enhancing their education nor are they enhancing the way [boys] look at girls.”
Guinness spokesperson Cawthra Burns countered, “We don’t feel that any episodes that appear in the book are in any way inappropriate.”
A nine-member considerations committee has scheduled a public hearing for March 21.
Posted March 18, 2002.