The Webb City (Mo.) School District board reached a compromise August 13 in a parental dispute that questioned whether a series of books that uses an adolescent girl named Alice to explore the issues of growth, development, and sexuality should remain available to 5th- and 6th-grade students in elementary school libraries.
After reviewing the books, the board voted to remove Achingly Alice, Alice in Lace, and The Grooming of Alice while making three other titles in the series written by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor available only to 6th-grade students with parental permission, the August 14 Kansas City Star reported. The changes took effect when classes began August 21.
Resident Charles Moore, who was among 50 citizens attending the board meeting, said he objected to the books on moral grounds. “God tells us some of the things in these books is an abomination, like homosexuality and certain acts between men and women,” he said.
The board had voted in June to ban the books, but later rescinded that vote because no one had read them. A six-teacher committee recommended that none of the books be banned.
Posted September 2, 2002.