by: Guy Tridgell
Nothing about Diane Norris indicates a freedom fighter is at work. As assistant director of youth services at the Orland Park Public Library, Norris helps to oversee the section containing children's books and juvenile literature. It's a quiet comfortable environment on the building's ground level, where most of the noise comes from kids still unwise to the ways of library etiquette.
"Controversial" is not the word that comes to mind describing the place and her job.
But if you need help finding "And Tango Makes Three" or "King & King" - two books for children that have been asked to be pulled from libraries throughout the country for their gay overtones - Norris will help. Happily.
"I would never tell someone what they can or cannot read," she said. "Information is free. People should be allowed to read whatever they want. I am not going to be the one taking it away from them. It is important for anyone to have the information they need or want."
Saturday is the start of Banned Books Week, started 27 years ago by Chicago's American Library Association. Throughout this week, small township libraries with a few shelves to huge urban libraries with tens of thousands of titles will be setting up displays of books that have been banned or challenged throughout the years for various reasons.
Among the works that will be showcased because they were considered naughty, offensive or sacrilegious at one time or another are "The Catcher in the Rye," "Of Mice and Men," "Huckleberry Finn" and, yes, the Bible.
Behind the in-your-face celebration will be the staunchest defenders of your right to get your hands on material that has disparaged religions, put races in unflattering lights or told the stories of homosexual couples raising kids - your local librarians.
If you're looking for a defender of the First Amendment, you can find it with them. They won't be waving a flag or shouting "USA!" repeatedly to prove the point, either.
At the small Homer Township Public Library, director Sheree Kozel-LaHa will be putting in a cage for all to see some books that have made waves through the years.
For Kozel-LaHa, access to anything, even if it might be in bad taste, is a big deal. Her message is clear: If you have an objection to a book, quit reading it and move on to something else. She'll even help you find something more agreeable to your tastes.
"It is a core American value to be able to think, read and express ourselves," she said. "There is freedom to choose. We don't want to circumvent that."
Her stance comes despite just one objection made about a book at her library. A local woman believed S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders," a classic story about battling high schoolers, sent the wrong message to the community. The book stayed on the shelves.
Some libraries might've taken the chicken way out and "recataloged" the book or hidden it behind a counter.
"I would have a problem with doing that - philosophically and personally," Kozel-LaHa said. "We are supposed to be the one place where that doesn't happen."
The notion of banning books might seem like a quaint idea, something the squares of another era did, but it's not.
In Round Rock, Texas, the teen book "TTYL" was pulled from school libraries last year. This summer, parents organized a "keep our libraries clean" crusade in West Bend, Wis.
Oak Lawn was ground zero in 1980 for a national movement to get the sex-ed book "Show Me" removed from the library.
"We still get repeated challenges today for 'To Kill a Mockingbird,'" said Debra Caldwell-Stone, acting director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom.
For the third consecutive year, "And Tango Makes Three" topped the list of books that have been asked to be pulled, Caldwell-Stone said. The book is the true story of two male penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo who develop an especially close relationship and raise a chick together.
The words "gay" or "homosexual" are never used in the story, but it's apparent that someone who has a problem with same-sex couples would object.
At the Tinley Park Public Library, Richard Wolff keeps two copies of the book. Anyone can get their hands on one of them within minutes of walking through the doors.
"Who is it for me to say what you should read or what anyone should read or view?" said Wolff, the library's administrator. "It is not to say you should not read something because it might be controversial. It's not the role of a library. I'm not a radical, but it's my profession and it's something I take seriously."
Wolff could recall only one challenge to a book in his 14 years at the library. A patron thought a children's book contained a reference to suicide. After Wolff reviewed the book, it stayed.
"It's not our job to censor," he said. "Here the thought is it's the parent's job to decide what their child reads."
Spoken like a true freedom fighter.
from: Southtown Star
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