Remember that board of trustees that scratched a bunch of books from a to-purchase list drawn up by a team of parents and teachers?

Turns out the trustees hadn’t read the books they axed.

“When it came time to say which were acceptable and which ones weren’t, they picked a bloc of books that had Clifford and Disney, that they really had no problem with, but they were in the same group that they did have concerns about,” trustee Maurice Kunkel said.

Now that is something that really, really gets my goat: people who make judgments about books without having read them—that is, judgments that affect whether other people can or will read the books in question. Obviously, we all make private judgments every time we decide whether to read or not to read a particular book. But those who make public judgments, those affecting policy decisions or reader opinion, have a responsibility to make informed decisions.

Camille has more. So does Becky.

(I do still see a difference between not buying and banning. But this board of trustees had no business overriding parent/teacher choices without even troubling themselves to read the books in question.)

Tags: children’s literature, kidlit, children’s books, books, banned books