Did this just happen?

Maureen Robins

On Nov 23, 2007 10:37 AM, TLP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Sadly, this type of thing continues. From a Middle School Lit Group,
>
> Sebastopol librarian Richie Partington was fired from his library
> consultant's position with the Bellevue Union School District in Santa
> Rosa California a day after refusing to meet with a principal who had
> banned Rodman Philbrick's The Last Book in the Universe from his
> school's library without having read it.
>
> "I politely but firmly made it clear to the District Superintendent
> that until the principal actually read the book he had banned, I
> didn't see how we could have a conversation about the book.
>
> Partington had twice read the first chapter of the book aloud to sixth
> grade classes at the District's Kawana School the previous week and
> "had more than a dozen students begging to read it."  When Partington
> arrived at the school on the following Monday morning with four copies
> of the book, he was informed by the school's library clerk (who also
> has never read the book) that she didn't want the book in the library
> because it has to do with gangs and that she'd gotten the principal to
> forbid its addition to the collection.
>
> Noting in an email to the Superintendent that "the bigger issue here
> is one of arbitrariness due to a lack of a District collection
> development policy and District reconsideration policy," Partington
> immediately drafted and emailed a proposal for a reconsideration
> policy to the Superintendent who responded the same day by mailing out
> the termination letter.
>
> The termination is effective immediately.
>
> --
>
>
> What blows me away are people willing to ban books they haven't even read...
> Tena
>
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