A woman in Lewiston, Maine, has checked out copies of the oft-challenged It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health by Robie H. Harris from the public libraries in Lewiston and Auburn and refuses to return them, citing the book’s frank content.
“Since I have been sufficiently horrified of the illustrations and the sexually graphic, amoral abnormal contents, I will not be returning the books,” JoAn Karkos wrote in August 11 letters to Rick Speer and Rosemary Waltos, the respective directors of the Lewiston and Auburn libraries. Karkos included a check for $20.95 to cover the cost of the book with each letter, the Lewiston Sun Journal reported September 18.
Speer returned the check, along with the library’s materials reconsideration form. However, Karkos reiterated at a September 19 Lewiston Public Library board meeting that she did not intend to return the book or fill out the form, challenging trustees to take It’s Perfectly Normal “out in the park and call some children over and show it to them.” If she does not return the book, she faces fines and a $25 penalty.
Karkos originally learned of the book, which both libraries shelve in the children’s section, from a newsletter of the American Life League. “I was horrified that it was in existence, and horrified that it was in my local library,” she said. “I would object to this book anywhere in the library, but these copies were in the children’s sections.”
“We have a policy of covering all the sides of controversial issues,” Speer said in the September 18 Sun Journal. “We don’t restrict what kids borrow. We can’t act in the role of a parent.”
In an August 22 letter to the editor of the Sun Journal, Karkos wrote that It’s Perfectly Normal “robs children of the natural progression of sexual investigation” and gives sexual predators a tool that “gets children past the stage of embarrassment, blush, and shame.” Speer told the paper the protest had increased interest in the book; both libraries ordered two additional copies apiece and have received offers to give the libraries more. “I turned them down,” Speer said. “Instead, I suggested they donate a copy to their local library.”
Acknowledging that her protest has increased interest in the book, Karkos predicted, “When people actually see what’s on the pages, what passes for a book in the public library, I think they’ll be upset.”
Posted September 21, 2007.