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Florida Trustees Advise Director to Rescind Novel’s RemovalThe advisory board of the Marion County (Fla.) Public Library System has recommended that Director Julie Sieg rescind her August decision to remove Linda Jaivin’s sexually explicit novel Eat Me from the library collection. The trustees’ 7–3 vote came during an impassioned three-hour meeting December 2 in which they also backed, 9–1, the retention of Cathryn Clinton’s A Stone in My Hand,—a young-adult novel about the Palestinian intifada that Sieg had supported keeping.The discussion about whether to retain A Stone in My Hand revolved around whether the book might encourage anti-Semitism among its readers. “I’m not saying Israel is perfect,” declared Steve Klein, who had appealed Sieg’s decision to keep the novel. “But do we want our county’s library to encourage children to hate Jews and to hate Israel?” Referring to recent news reports of the shooting of Palestinian youngsters by Israeli soldiers, trustee John McKeever remarked, “I don’t find these incidents as remote from reality as you do.” When the meeting turned to review of Eat Me, former board chair Mary Lutes, who had challenged Sieg’s removal of the book, argued that the collection-development policy of MCPLS calls for the acquisition of diverse points of view, no matter how unorthodox. “The only things I learned from this book is that intelligent perverts who can turn a phrase can get published; women don’t need men as long as there are vegetables; and we don’t need libraries as long as we have adult bookstores,” Ocala resident Margarite Cavanaugh disagreed. Despite the trustees’ vote to retain the Jaivin novel, Sieg can still decide against reshelving it, according to the library’s reconsideration policy. She did not indicate when she would announce her final verdict, according to the December 3 Ocala Star Banner. Posted December 8, 2003. |
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