Virginia School Board Proposes Burning Books

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say keep going GOP. You will succeed in making VA permanently a blue state.

Yes, that’s definitely what the last election showed. Parents really love handing over the reigns of their children’s education to school boards.

They are going to like turning over the reins to people like you even less. I fully support your right to decide what your own children read. But when you also appoint yourself the arbiter of what everyone else's children can read, you are going too far. If you don't want your child to read the book, don't let them check it out of the library. But supporting book burning because of your own preferences is unacceptable.

Yeah see the thing about “my preferences” is it happens to be the “preference” protected under federal law. This book - being distributed to minors - is a federal crime. And should be treated as such. https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/obscenity

The book in question comes nowhere near meeting the definition of "obscenity". You are welcome to pursue a lawsuit if you want to put your money where your mouth is.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:https://fredericksburg.com/news/local/education/spotsylvania-school-board-orders-libraries-to-remove-sexually-explicit-books/article_6c54507a-6383-534d-89b9-c2deb1f6ba17.html

This is what Virginians voted for I guess. I hope it works out for you:

Two board members, Courtland representative Rabih Abuismail and Livingston representative Kirk Twigg, said they would like to see the removed books burned.

“I think we should throw those books in a fire,” Abuismail said, and Twigg said he wants to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”

...

The book, “33 Snowfish” by Adam Rapp, concerns three homeless teenagers attempting to escape from pasts that include sexual abuse, prostitution and drug addiction.

Publisher’s Weekly described “33 Snowfish,” which the American Library Association named a Best Book for Young Adults in 2004, as a “dark tale about three runaways who understand hatred and violence better than love” and noted “readers may have trouble stomaching the language” and the subject matter.

Who are the "snowflakes" again?

Spotsylvania County is hardly northern Virginia. Jeff you lately seen laser focused on random news about Virginia. I guess we could find random outliers in DC or Virginia and make posts that paint those entire jurisdictions in bad light but why?! I don’t understand what the angst is with you and Virginia. Because they voted a Republican as governor? What about Maryland?

[Anonymous]

Ah, we've come to the book-burning party of our history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do find it odd that that ratios of LGBTQ-themed to straight-themed books about teen relationships were so heavily skewed towards LQBTQ.

That’s just ….like I said - odd. Most teens are not LGBTQ, so it makes no sense that fiction books about teens dating should be 166-to-2 in favor of LGBTQ storylines.

I’m not suggesting book burning, but someone definitely needs to look into the library system’s procurement process.

You're saying there are way more books about LGBTQ relationships in libraries than about m/f? Can you give us sources of where those numbers you cited? That would be helpful to assess the truthiness of your assertion.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:https://fredericksburg.com/news/local/education/spotsylvania-school-board-orders-libraries-to-remove-sexually-explicit-books/article_6c54507a-6383-534d-89b9-c2deb1f6ba17.html

This is what Virginians voted for I guess. I hope it works out for you:

Two board members, Courtland representative Rabih Abuismail and Livingston representative Kirk Twigg, said they would like to see the removed books burned.

“I think we should throw those books in a fire,” Abuismail said, and Twigg said he wants to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”

...

The book, “33 Snowfish” by Adam Rapp, concerns three homeless teenagers attempting to escape from pasts that include sexual abuse, prostitution and drug addiction.

Publisher’s Weekly described “33 Snowfish,” which the American Library Association named a Best Book for Young Adults in 2004, as a “dark tale about three runaways who understand hatred and violence better than love” and noted “readers may have trouble stomaching the language” and the subject matter.

Who are the "snowflakes" again?

Spotsylvania County is hardly northern Virginia. Jeff you lately seen laser focused on random news about Virginia. I guess we could find random outliers in DC or Virginia and make posts that paint those entire jurisdictions in bad light but why?! I don’t understand what the angst is with you and Virginia. Because they voted a Republican as governor? What about Maryland?

Where did I say anything about "northern Virginia"? If you find school boards in Maryland or DC that are supporting book burning, please start threads.

During the VA gubernatorial campaign, the issue of books in schools was fairly prominent. Youngkin even ran an ad featuring a woman who wanted to ban a book. Burning books is just the logical course of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The likes of you and the children you are raising don’t read books anyway. The topics are not being taught. They are accessible books. Do you even have enough education about history to understand why book burning is bad? Critical thinking skills have been bred out of your family. Thirty years of home schooling has doomed this country.

You really don't get the difference from school systems purchasing disturbing books and putting them in school libraries and "banning books?"

No one is calling on books to be banned. We just want common sense controlsof what goes into school libraries where --with the exception of those just turned 18--all of the target audiences are minors.

Why do you get to decide what my kids get to encounter in their school library? You want to control your own children, fine -- tell them clear as day what they are allowed and not allowed to read. Give them a list of books you ban them from reading. If you are not satisfied with that solution, for whatever reason (your children don't listen to you), tell your kids they are not allowed to use their school library. Tell the school your kids are not allowed to use the library. Leave my kids' ability to choose for themselves out if it. You don't speak for me or my kids and your decision to narrow the choice of books your kids get exposed to should not get to affect my children. Who do you think you are anyway?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m sure the library is full of books on both sides of the political spectrum. And it’s not like they are taking about To kill a mockingbird here. As a parent, I find it somewhat exhausting to find books for my kids that are recently published and not focused on a special category vs ethics or a god forbid good writing with a good story. The Catcher in the Rye would have never been published now - too white - too male - too straight. And they pulled similar shit when I was in high school we read poorly written books because they were diverse. Look why aren’t they suggesting Invisible Man instead of this drivel? There are many great diverse books but the ones you are describing certainly don’t sound like it.

LOLOLOLOL

Between 1961 and 1982, The Catcher in the Rye was the most censored book in high schools and libraries in the United States. The book was briefly banned in the Issaquah, Washington, high schools in 1978 when three members of the School Board alleged the book was part of an "overall communist plot."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Catcher_in_the_Rye

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:https://fredericksburg.com/news/local/education/spotsylvania-school-board-orders-libraries-to-remove-sexually-explicit-books/article_6c54507a-6383-534d-89b9-c2deb1f6ba17.html

This is what Virginians voted for I guess. I hope it works out for you:

Two board members, Courtland representative Rabih Abuismail and Livingston representative Kirk Twigg, said they would like to see the removed books burned.

“I think we should throw those books in a fire,” Abuismail said, and Twigg said he wants to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”

...

The book, “33 Snowfish” by Adam Rapp, concerns three homeless teenagers attempting to escape from pasts that include sexual abuse, prostitution and drug addiction.

Publisher’s Weekly described “33 Snowfish,” which the American Library Association named a Best Book for Young Adults in 2004, as a “dark tale about three runaways who understand hatred and violence better than love” and noted “readers may have trouble stomaching the language” and the subject matter.

Who are the "snowflakes" again?

Spotsylvania County is hardly northern Virginia. Jeff you lately seen laser focused on random news about Virginia. I guess we could find random outliers in DC or Virginia and make posts that paint those entire jurisdictions in bad light but why?! I don’t understand what the angst is with you and Virginia. Because they voted a Republican as governor? What about Maryland?

Get with the program. Hogan is a RINO according to Trump Republicans. So he doesn't count.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say keep going GOP. You will succeed in making VA permanently a blue state.

Yes, that’s definitely what the last election showed. Parents really love handing over the reigns of their children’s education to school boards.

PP here - I'm not going to deny the GOP win in VA, but the largest margin I've seen is 52%-48% for Governor and Sears 50.7%-49.3% over Ayala. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the GOP.

So go ahead and run crazy Elizabeth Schultz for school board, burn books, invite dip$h!t misogynist Matt Walsh as the keynote speaker for graduation and see how that works out for you. I can't wait.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The likes of you and the children you are raising don’t read books anyway. The topics are not being taught. They are accessible books. Do you even have enough education about history to understand why book burning is bad? Critical thinking skills have been bred out of your family. Thirty years of home schooling has doomed this country.

You really don't get the difference from school systems purchasing disturbing books and putting them in school libraries and "banning books?"

No one is calling on books to be banned. We just want common sense controlsof what goes into school libraries where --with the exception of those just turned 18--all of the target audiences are minors.

Why do you get to decide what my kids get to encounter in their school library? You want to control your own children, fine -- tell them clear as day what they are allowed and not allowed to read. Give them a list of books you ban them from reading. If you are not satisfied with that solution, for whatever reason (your children don't listen to you), tell your kids they are not allowed to use their school library. Tell the school your kids are not allowed to use the library. Leave my kids' ability to choose for themselves out if it. You don't speak for me or my kids and your decision to narrow the choice of books your kids get exposed to should not get to affect my children. Who do you think you are anyway?

Thank you for expressing how I feel PP. The Youngkin win has emboldened the wanna be fascists in VA (where I live) so expect to see more of this behavior throughout the state. Especially now when parents can view books online and don't even have to physically go to see what's available in their child's library. I used to tutor reading in my child's ES and it never once occurred to me to research the books in her school library. Even if there was something offensive in that library, the odds of my specific child 1) encountering the "bad" book amongst thousands of books and 2) reading it from cover to cover were slim to none--just like the odds of the PPs child encountering the book(s) PP finds offensive.

[Anonymous]

Why not include reasons for why these books are recommended reading or being included in a school library? What learning objective or goal do they fulfill? To be exposed to an idea just for exposures sake doesn't make sense if you can curate better source material that fulfills learning goals and objectives. Instead of a book like 33 Snowfish which seems to be dark for the sake of being macabre if you want to have school aged kids read a book about pedophilia/child sex trafficking why not instead include works or memoires by individuals that actually experienced and survived such a situation and have something more meaningful to say?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not include reasons for why these books are recommended reading or being included in a school library? What learning objective or goal do they fulfill? To be exposed to an idea just for exposures sake doesn't make sense if you can curate better source material that fulfills learning goals and objectives. Instead of a book like 33 Snowfish which seems to be dark for the sake of being macabre if you want to have school aged kids read a book about pedophilia/child sex trafficking why not instead include works or memoires by individuals that actually experienced and survived such a situation and have something more meaningful to say?

There are plenty of those to be found in libraries. And if you think there aren’t, send a list of suggested titles plus the money to purchase them. Or do you just want to complain?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not include reasons for why these books are recommended reading or being included in a school library? What learning objective or goal do they fulfill? To be exposed to an idea just for exposures sake doesn't make sense if you can curate better source material that fulfills learning goals and objectives. Instead of a book like 33 Snowfish which seems to be dark for the sake of being macabre if you want to have school aged kids read a book about pedophilia/child sex trafficking why not instead include works or memoires by individuals that actually experienced and survived such a situation and have something more meaningful to say?

There are plenty of those to be found in libraries. And if you think there aren’t, send a list of suggested titles plus the money to purchase them. Or do you just want to complain?

You didn't answer my question. Why not include reasons for why these books are recommended reading or being included in a school library? What learning objective or goal do they fulfill?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not include reasons for why these books are recommended reading or being included in a school library? What learning objective or goal do they fulfill? To be exposed to an idea just for exposures sake doesn't make sense if you can curate better source material that fulfills learning goals and objectives. Instead of a book like 33 Snowfish which seems to be dark for the sake of being macabre if you want to have school aged kids read a book about pedophilia/child sex trafficking why not instead include works or memoires by individuals that actually experienced and survived such a situation and have something more meaningful to say?

There are plenty of those to be found in libraries. And if you think there aren’t, send a list of suggested titles plus the money to purchase them. Or do you just want to complain?

You’re on the Loudon County School Board aren’t you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not include reasons for why these books are recommended reading or being included in a school library? What learning objective or goal do they fulfill? To be exposed to an idea just for exposures sake doesn't make sense if you can curate better source material that fulfills learning goals and objectives. Instead of a book like 33 Snowfish which seems to be dark for the sake of being macabre if you want to have school aged kids read a book about pedophilia/child sex trafficking why not instead include works or memoires by individuals that actually experienced and survived such a situation and have something more meaningful to say?

There are plenty of those to be found in libraries. And if you think there aren’t, send a list of suggested titles plus the money to purchase them. Or do you just want to complain?

You didn't answer my question. Why not include reasons for why these books are recommended reading or being included in a school library? What learning objective or goal do they fulfill?

Only if you include reasons for EVERY book in libraries. Then you have to provide the resources for staff to write up those reasons. Okay?