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Mermaids Find Safe Harbor in Utah LibraryThe board of the Davis County (Utah) Library voted unanimously August 22 to retain the illustrated fantasy book Voyage of the Basset in the young adult collection. “We don’t rate books and never will,” trustee Mike Gann asserted. “Our job is to make things available.”Complainant Valerie Mills objected to the book in June after her 5-year-old son borrowed it from the children’s section, where it was originally shelved, and showed her the illustrations it contains of topless mermaids and other partially clothed mythical creatures—drawings his teenage cousins told him about. “They knew of, and could go quickly to, the pages with the nudity,“ Mills said in the August 23 Salt Lake Tribune. “The question to me is not whether the book has a good story line, but does it sexually stimulate young boys?” pornography-addiction therapist Rod Jeppsen said at the board meeting. Explaining that the group Citizens for Decency had asked him to evaluate Voyage of the Basset, he explained, “What we normally don’t consider pornography, a child may get sexually aroused by.” Mills told the Tribune she was comfortable with the board’s decision since the Davis County Library offers parents the option of limiting their youngsters’ borrowing privileges to the children’s section or to young adult. Stating that it’s good to have a healthy understanding of both human anatomy and mythology, Voyage of the Basset illustrator and author James C. Christensen expressed astonishment at the opposition to his 1996 book. “It was never my intent to cause any problems for people,” he told the newspaper. Christensen is a retired Brigham Young University art professor and cochair of the Mormon Arts Foundation. Posted August 25, 2006. |
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