Challenges Aren’t Cheaper
by the Dozen in Virginia
A member of the Fairfax County, Virginia, group Parents Against Bad Books in Schools (PABBIS) filed challenges in October to 18 books in the district’s libraries. Each review will cost some $2,600, Fairfax school district Chief Information Officer Maribeth Luftglass told the October 31 Northern Virginia Journal, bringing the overall price tag to almost $50,000.
Complainant Richard Ess is also asking that no members of the American Library Association or the National Education Association serve on the reconsideration committees because both organizations “are officially against any attempts at removal of books from any school,” according to the PABBIS Web site.
The challenged elementary-school titles are: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Girl Goddess and Witch Baby by Francesca Lia Block, The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold by Block and Suza Scalora, The Chocolate War and Tenderness by Robert Cormier, Silver Pigs: A Novel by Lindsey Davis, Time for Dancing: A Novel by Davida Hurwin, and Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers.
In the middle schools, Ess seeks removal of: How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez, I Was a Teenage Fairy by Francesca Lia Block, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Shogun by James Clavell, Heroes by Robert Cormier, Growing Up Chicana/o by Tiffany Ana Lopez, When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, and Thousand Pieces of Gold by Adeline Yen Mah.
Ess contends that the books contain profanity and descriptions of drug abuse, sexually explicit conduct, and torture. PABBIS member Stan Barton cited similar reasons for challenging Gates of Fire earlier this year, but school officials declined to pull the title.
Posted November 11, 2002.
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