The five books under discussion at the 9/29/2022 Phillips Public Library board meeting are owned by multiple libraries in the South Central Library System LINKcat consortium.
WXPR, 9/23/2022
In total, the challenged books make up less than 1 percent of the library’s children’s collection.
Nearly 50 people attended the library’s next board meeting.
Half argued the challenged books were inappropriate for kids. They claimed librarians were using the books to push a political agenda.
“Why are they using these books to groom children?” one speaker at the board’s April meeting asked.
“It is not the librarian’s responsibility to proselytize a political, social or personal ideology,” said another. “We must let children be children. Children deal with enough garbage. They should not be exposed to adult topics when they’re still struggling to learn how to tie their shoes.”
The other half disagreed. They defended the challenged books on the grounds that representation matters.
“Teaching our children while they are young that they are worthy of love and respect, regardless of how many mommies or daddies they have, is how we instill in our children traditional values like self-esteem, community and respect for all people,” said another speaker.
Among the LINKcat libraries that own at least one copy of any of the 5 books whose covers are pictured here, there is one conspicuous absence.
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