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U.S. Schools Needled by Golden CompassThe debate raging in some Canadian school dioceses over the presence of Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass on media center shelves has expanded from Canada to the United States, where a public school in Alamosa, Colorado, briefly removed the book in November and a Catholic school in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, is in the process of reconsidering it. It was Alamosa’s Ortega Middle School librarian Mindy Wandling who pulled the book over concerns about its age-appropriateness in November, after consulting with principal Neil Seneff. Alamosa High School librarian Mark Skinner soon found out about the removal and protested to district Superintendent Henry Herrera, who convened a meeting with school principals and librarians on December 3. Within two days, The Golden Compass was back in the Ortega collection, according to the December 11 Alamosa Valley Courier. “I have a hard time with anyone who wants to pull a book when they haven’t read it,” Skinner said at a December 10 Adams State College public forum prompted by the incident. Forum panelist Ed Wandling, husband of the Ortega school librarian, explained that Mindy became concerned after her research on Pullman turned up an interview in the Sydney Morning Herald December 13, 2003, in which Pullman—an avowed atheist—said, “My books are about killing God.” Ed Wandling (who said he was representing his wife because she was recovering from the shock of two area shootings December 8 and 9 targeting the New Life Church where the Wandlings are staff members) added that he was not challenging the book’s literary merit but its message because it conflicts with community standards. “The American Library Association thinks I, as a parent, am the only one who can restrict what my children read. I don’t agree with that.” Two Catholic schools in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, are also caught up in the controversy: The media specialist for the shared library of the St. John Neumann Middle School and Lourdes High School has removed all three books in Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, of which The Golden Compass is the first title, while she reads it over to determine its appropriateness. “I just heard all the news and I decided to pull them,” Mary Miller said in the December 7 Oshkosh Northwestern, adding that after she has reviewed the books, “I’m not sure what I’ll do with them.” Meantime, officials at the Greater Sudbury (Ont.) Public Library have declined to delete The Golden Compass from its 2007 list of books for 4th–6th-graders participating in the library’s annual Battle of the Books competition, as requested by area resident Cheryl Battistelli. Dissatisfied with the library’s response, Battistelli reiterated her objections in a December 12 letter to children’s librarian Monique Roy that was posted to the blog of the Sudbury Star the following day. Battistelli argued that because many of the contestants attend Catholic schools, “this author’s viewpoint of Christianity and the church is highly offensive,” and that its inclusion “eliminated the freedom of choice, essentially forcing children to read this very questionable book, lest they be at a disadvantage in the competition.” Roy responded in the Star that participants are not required to read all the books on the list, and that very few actually do. Posted December 14, 2007. |
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