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[quote=Anonymous]Has anyone else been following the decision by the American Library Association's recent decision to purge the Wilder Award for Children's literature of any reference to Laura Ingalls Wilder?

If Laura Ingalls Wilder's accurate historical recounting of the pioneer experience is so offensive to the American Library Association that they feel that it is better to erase her as an author, what writers are next?  How can any writers meet their "standards" of purity, and how long until the book banning, censorship and book burning begins?

And yes before dcum asks, I am a minority defendant of immigrants who is from a nationality that was relocated and stripped of property by the federal government.

Her stories, particularly the chapter in Little House on the Prairie that described her watching the forced relocation of the Indian tribes, were so poignant to me as a child, a teen and an adult. So simply written, they touched me and opened my eyes to a part of history in a way that made it come alive and made me ache for what was done to those native people.  That book explained that part of history and all its complexities in a way that nothing else, including history books, could do for a child.

The minstral show was troubling to me growing up, but it is an accurate portrayal of the racism of the times (20 +/- years after the Civil War). This contrasts with the only real African American person in the series, Dr. George Tan who single handedly saved the lives of the Ingalls family and all the settlers in that area when they were struck down with malaria.  He is remembered and immortalized through Laura Ingalls Wilder's books as someone whose works changed literary history. Without these books, Dr. Tan might just have faded into history.

Her writings are a treasure and a window to our past (the good, the bad, the amazing and the horrible) written in a way that is perfect for children.

It is horrible that the people who should be the protectors of free expression are now the promoters of revising, censoring and whitewashing history.

How do other parents feel about this decision?[/quote]

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