Censorship of reading material in schools will continue, as long as there is intolerance.

The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning...along with the houses in which they were hidden. ( Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 )

Our constitution states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Yet these stated freedoms have been challenged through out the United States.

' In encyclopedia we are not battling a plot that captivates minds but are looking for erroneous information, sensual pictures, and unchaste details...One of the areas that needs correction is immodesty due to nakedness and posture. This can be corrected by drawing clothes on the figure or blotting out entire pictures with a magic marker. This needs to be done with care as the magic marker can be erased from the glossy paper used in printing encyclopedias. You can overcome this by taking a razor blade and lightly scraping the surface until it loses it's glaze. After this is done the magic marker will not erase. ( As for evolution )...cutting out the sections ( on the subject ) is practical if the portions removed are not thick enough to cause damage to the spine of the book as it is opened and closed in normal use. When the sections needing correction are too thick, paste together being careful not to smear portions of the book not intended for correction ' ( Clark, 1986 ).

Anyone who looks over the list of banned books, must wonder what has aroused such fear in parents, that they feel the need to suppress these books. Ideas can only reach the minds of our children through the mediums of print, speech, and electronic media.

Parents do have the right to teach their beliefs and values, but at home, not in school. They, as well as teachers, should have the right to participate in the book selection review process, but final decision must rest with the school board, as long as the decision does not violate First Amendment Rights.

Parents do not have the right to censor what the majority of children can read. Authors reflect the world we live in. To deny that problems exist is to deny any hope of dealing with and solving these problems.

The impressions we give our children, through books, should not be a world of limited and narrow vision, but diverse experiences and limitless possibilities.

ALA Challenged Books Online

Challenged books:
• ' American Heritage Dictionary ' . Challenged but retained in the Churchill County, Nev. school libraries in 1993. This began after another dictionary was removed due to " objectionable language." Although it was removed from classrooms in Washoe County, it was later returned.

• ' Draw 50 Monsters, Creeps, Super heroes, Demons, Dragons, Nerds, Dirts, Ghouls, Giants, Vampires, Zombies and Other Curiosa ' by Lee J. Ames. Challenged but retained at the Battle Creek, Mich. elementary school library in 1994. A parent had protested the book, calling it satanic.

• ' The Little Mermaid ' by Hans Christian Andersen. Challenged in the Bedford. Tex. school district in 1994. The edition was illustrated with bare-breasted mermaids; challengers called it "pornographic" and said it contained " satanic pictures."

• ' Literature in Society: Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama ' by Pamela Annas and Robert Rosen. I t was pulled from the senior literature class at the Hempfield, Pa. Area School District in 1994. Some of the passages were determined to be " vulgar."

• ' Mystery Ride ' by Robert Boswell. This book, along with several others, was attacked by an "apparent self-appointed censor" at the Coquille. Oreg. Public Library in 1994. Someone whited out single words and sexually explicit passages in the books and left either dots or solid inked lines where the words were. The books were mostly mysteries and romances.

• ' Invisible Man ' by Ralph Ellison. Retained in the Yakima, Wash. schools in 1994 after a five-month dispute over what advanced high school students should read in the classroom. Two parents asked the book be removed from the reading list because of its profanity and images of violence and sexuality.

• ' Jambo Means Hello: The Swahili Alphabet ' by Muriel Feelings. Challenged by a school board member in the Queens, NY school libraries in 1994. The board member said it " denigrate(s) white American culture, promotes racial separation, and discourages assimilation.¬î The rest of the school board voted to retain the book.

• ' Grandpa's Ghost Stories ' by James Flora. Challenged as inappropriate at the Broadwater Elementary School Library in Billings, Mont. in 1994. It was challenged because " children don't need to be allowed to read anything they want."

• ' The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm ' by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm K. Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes. Restricted to sixth- through eighth-grade classrooms at the Kyrene, Ariz. elementary schools in 1994. The book was restricted due to its "excessive violence, negative portrayals of female characters, and anti-Semitic references."

• ' Brave New World ' by Aldous Huxley. Challenged but retained as required reading in the Corona-Norco, Calif. Unified School District in 1993. The book was challenged because it is "centered around negative activity." Although it was retained, teachers could select alternatives if students objected to reading the book.

• ' The Drawings of Renoir ', edited by Stephen Longstreet. Retained at Maldonaldo Elementary School in Tucson, Ariz. in 1994. Parents had objected to nudity and "pornographic," "perverted," and "morbid" themes.

• ' Thousand Pieces of Gold ' by Ruthanne Lum McCunn. Rejected as an addition to a core literature list by the Amador County, Calif. Unified School District in 1994. It was rejected because " it makes America look bad."

• ' Tar Beach ' by Faith Ringgold. Challenged in the Spokane, Wash. elementary school libraries in 1994. The book, based on memories of the author's family rooftop picnics in 1930s Harlem, was challenged because it stereotypes blacks as eating fried chicken and watermelon and drinking beer. The book won the 1992 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for its portrayal of minorities.

• ' A Thousand Acres ' by Jane Smiley. Banned at the Lynden, Wash. High School in 1994. Although the book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1991, it was described as "having no literary value in our community right now." School officials noted that the protesters had also tried to block an anti-drug program, a multicultural program and a Valentine's Day dance because the events did not "reflect the values parents want taught."

• ' The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ' by Mark Twain. Challenged but retained on high school reading lists by the Lewisville, Tex. school board in 1994. Also challenged in English classes at Taylor County High School in Butler, Ga. in 1994. It was challenged because it contains racial slurs and bad grammar and does not reject slavery.

• ' Of Mice and Men ' by John Steinbeck. Challenged as an appropriate English curriculum assignment at the Mingus, Ariz. Union High School in 1993. It was challenged because of "profane language, moral statement, treatment of the retarded, and the violent ending." Also pulled from a classroom by the Putnam County, Tenn. school superintendent in 1994, because "due to the language in it, we just can't have this kind of book being taught." Also challenged at the Loganville, Ga. High School in 1994 because of its "vulgar language throughout" (1994, Newsletter Intellectual freedom ).

• The school library in Oconee County, Georgia removed nine novels due to their "filthiness" and John Steinbeck's ' Red Pony ' which was challenged due to profanity. The school board voted to evaluate all 40,000 volumes in the system's library and remove any books and teaching materials from the public school that contain "explicit sex and pornography".
• Bare breasts in Hans Christian Andersen's ' Little Mermaid ' prompted a challenge in Bedford, Texas.

• In Yakima, Washington, Ralph Ellison's ' Invisible Man ' was challenged due to "profanity and images of violence and sexuality". It was eventually retained.

• ' The Autobiography of Malcolm X ' was "restricted" at the Jacksonville, Florida middle school libraries because it presents a racist view of white people and is a "how-to manual for crime" ( 1995, Doyle ).

How sad it would be to see a sign like this in a school media center...