The So-called Book Bannings

The American Library Association is planning a vote to determine who is to be its president. Emily Drabinski is seriously running for the presidency. She is an avowed Lesbian/Socialist. She and her girlfriend live in Brooklyn and have a son. Libraries have been living with austerity in recent years and she intends to change that. She realizes that culture war battles are raging everywhere. In Florida, there have been what is mistakenly labeled as book banning. However, as one who has been involved in some books “being age appropriately shelved” I find this nomenclature misleading and wrong. As one glaring example, a series of 9 books by James Patterson is subtitled; “A collection for young adults.” These, of course were removed from the elementary schools' libraries. They remained at the High School libraries. We cannot indiscriminately place books on shelves where the students cannot read them. Too wasteful!

If an elementary grade child were to pick one of these 9 from the shelf it is extremely doubtful that child could read much of the book. There is a rule of thumb librarians and reading teachers teach their students. Pick up the book, open to any page, (the words do not get more difficult as one progresses through the contents – the entire children's book is usually on the same grade level), place one finger down anytime you come to a word you cannot decode. If you get to 5, close the book. Put back in its place. It is not on your reading level. Choose another. Look at the pictures on the cover to help find what interests you.

Emily has positions on critical race theory, the failure of the workings of capitalism and so forth.

We surely do live in interesting times.

This is an editoral from one of our members and not the official position of the Martin County Republican Executive Committee.