ALA AWARDS AND SLJ STARRED REVIEWS are one thing. But volunteer librarians and teachers are often the ones selecting titles for Battle of the Books, state “master lists,” and state awards. Which brings us back to the question: How did George end up on the Battle of the Books list in Oregon?
A national Battle of the Books organization comes up with one list, but it hasn’t released its titles for 2018-2019 yet, and every BOB chapter I talked to around the country comes up with its own list, rather than using the national list. Some BOB chapters are just one library, some cover several school districts, and some like Oregon are statewide.
Oregon draws on a statewide group of librarians to volunteer to curate the state’s list. First, the group accepts reader nominations for the list, and George was one of the nominees. Then the OBOB selection committee considers whether nominated titles meet the organization’s criteria to be on the list. The criteria include whether the book (1) “is an appropriate reading level for 3-5th grade;” (2) “adds diversity of character, plot, perspective, and genre” to the OBOB list; and (3) “is an award winning book that has high-quality writing and is well-reviewed.” The committee decided George met the criteria.
“There was not sufficient feedback to cause concern for the committee to exclude the book from the list,” OBOB’s selection chair Courtney Snyder wrote me about George. Snyder told me that according to the handbook, once a title is on the list, it cannot be removed. After I asked about the inclusion of George, OBOB added a statement about the choice on its website, repeating most of what Snyder wrote me.
Now even Oregon public school districts are debating what to do with the list for next year, as students will likely start reading the titles on next year’s list over the summer. Roseburg Public Schools’ director of human resources Robert Freeman said the district was still discussing how it was going to inform parents about George’s inclusion on the BOB list, but initially the staff has talked about emphasizing to parents that the program is voluntary and that students who do decide to participate don’t have to read all the titles. He also underscored that “school districts have no say in these selections.”
Sheila Shapiro, a longtime public librarian and a Christian who works in the Portland, Ore., area, said her library buys copies of everything on the OBOB list so they’re available to check out; they’ll load up the shelves with next year’s list by the summer so kids can read over break.
Shapiro noticed these kinds of children’s books are becoming more of a “norm,” but she added that “the community has not been, as far as I know, clamoring for books on these topics.” She has read books on transgenderism for older age groups and said it has helped her understand some struggles that people with gender dysphoria go through. “You have compassion for them,” Shapiro said. “But for a young child … I would want a parent right there.” She said she can’t refuse the book to patrons but wouldn’t have her own child read it.
SOME BOOKWORM KIDS live for Battle of the Books—I was one of those in middle school and high school, reading through every book on the list sometimes multiple times over. It allowed me to discover diverse books I never would have read on my own. Carly Brust is a mother of six in Wheaton, Ill., and her oldest daughter Calla, 10, is in her first year of Battle of the Books at Wheaton Christian, a local private school. Calla loves it. She doesn’t play sports, according to her mom—she reads books. Battle of the Books is her World Series.
Wheaton Public Library puts together the book list for Wheaton Christian and the 10 surrounding public schools and manages the battles. The schools do eight rounds of battles to determine a champion. Wheaton Christian’s team was in second place of the 12 schools contending, heading into the final round. The library posts the points each team receives, and Calla would go to the library daily to check the points. Her team meets four times a week.
“She is not messing around,” said Brust.
George isn’t on the list in Calla’s district, but Wheaton Christian’s librarian combs through the list to find any titles that might be of concern to Christian parents, and Brust largely leans on the librarian’s judgment. The librarian emailed parents this year to alert them to one title, Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier, that may not fit the “Christian worldview.”
The school emphasized to parents that the students did not have to read the book and suggested that parents read it first if their children were going to read it. Brust read Ghosts and then let her daughter read it. One other student read it too, so they are the designated hitters for Ghosts questions.
But with a book like George, Brust can see that approach falling short: “I wonder if that will scare people away from even having their kid on the team at all, from an exposure sense.” Her daughter hasn’t had sex education yet, so many of the graphic details in George would be new to her. For now Brust doesn’t see a book with that kind of controversial material making it onto a list in their conservative, largely Christian district.
Those books are going on other lists in Illinois, though. Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart won the state’s Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award. In Lily and Dunkin, which the list says is for sixth to eighth grade, Tim is an eighth-grade boy who is certain he is a girl (Lily). It also talks about hormone blockers, sex change surgery, and taking estrogen. Tim narrates: “I need to start hormone blockers right now or things are going to happen that can’t be reversed.” One librarian told me the public school district in Lincolnshire, Ill., determines its Battle of the Books list from the Caudill awards list, so Lily and Dunkin will likely be on next year’s Battle of the Books list.
George won a similar state award in Kansas. Emporia State University hosts a committee of parents, teachers, and librarians who choose the master list for the William Allen White Children’s Book Award every year, which becomes a basis for many school library acquisitions. Last year they awarded George, putting it on the master list for third- to fifth-graders.
Despite the award and inclusion on the master list, Wichita public schools decided not to put George on its master list for elementary school shelves, with the supervising librarian Gail Becker telling The Wichita Eagle that the book was not age-appropriate. Becker pointed to the passages about porn, male genitalia, and sex change surgery, and said she didn’t think the “average 8-year-old” would be ready for those topics.
Comments
Janet B
Posted: Sat, 03/17/2018 09:42 amI can only shake my head...how did we get here?
RC
Posted: Mon, 03/19/2018 10:51 amAnswer: A lack of parental involvement in their child’s school. When an article showed up describing a lesbian student sexual experience in my teen’s High School newspaper, a meeting was set up with the principle, the teacher overseeing the school newspaper and a handful of concerned parents, (me included). Needless to say no more articles like that showed up again. That teacher was removed from overseeing the school newspaper. I took time for my wife and me, and the other parents, to organize and I had to use a half of day vacation time to attend that meeting, but it was worth it to fight for our children.
I my opinion, the LBGT crowd will continue to push the envelope with whatever propaganda they can get away with to get their way. Unless we boldly stand up and push back, we will get run over.
Narissara
Posted: Mon, 03/26/2018 10:00 pm@ Bob C
Lack of parental involvement is a huge factor. I've been AWOL from this site for almost two years. During that time I've come to understand what the acronym BUSY (being under Satan's yoke) really means. I had never been able to see a problem with being busy; after all 1 Thessalonians 4:11 tells us to attend to our own business and to work.
Parents must feel intense pressure trying to make ends meet. With the push toward "work-life integration" (hogwash, if you ask me), younger parents especially probably have a hard time learning how to switch off and turn their attention to other things, even if they do have an inkling of what's at stake. Meanwhile, activists make a career out of pushing their agenda . . .
austinbeartux
Posted: Mon, 03/19/2018 09:57 amBetsy DeVos--I hope you read this article. This is why Christian parents and children are running away from public schools as fast as they can. People like the author of George are given credence by the left-leaning, anti-Christian media, and school administrators. As long as this Christian exodus continues, public schools will continue their downward spiral into complete nonsense like this.
I'd also like to add that this angers me because I'm *forced* to pay for a public school (via Property Taxes) that is completely, 100%, unsatisfactory. Our taxes that go toward schools ought to be able to follow our children. If our children are in a private school, 100% of the school taxes we pay ought to be able to pay toward private school tuition.
4SKIBUMS
Posted: Mon, 03/19/2018 11:47 amAs a parent of a middle school child who participated in Oregon BOB this year, I had many reservations about the entire list of books. I personally reviewed all 16 books. Of the 16 books required to read to participate (and don't let them fool you - - you can't possible participate if you choose not to read a certain book!), only 4 of them did I even consider to be worthy of reading. The other 12 were complete YA fiction and a waste of time, trival, ill-written and the dumbing down of the YA mind.
I appreciate this article, and next year will encourage my child to use his time elsewhere. Which is sad, because he loves to read and OBOB could be a great thing.
Ann Marshall
Posted: Mon, 03/19/2018 01:34 pmKudos to you for reviewing all the books in question: not an easy task! It makes me sad children are being pressured to read ill-written books as part of their education at any time: there are so many excellent books in this world.
Paul B. Taylor
Posted: Mon, 03/26/2018 09:07 pmClearly, sex change hormones and surgery are dangerous both physically and psychologically, and this is not considered. So, the fact that many wish children to have an advanced sexual awareness at such a young age through children's literature is, I think, a political calculation.
First of all, children will be encouraged to challenge parental authority when they have more personal autonomy that is related to sexual flirtations in the public school arena. This greater sexual independence creates rebellion in the home sphere which leads to children rejecting their parents' authority in favor of the authority of those who support their new found feelings. In the final analysis, it is essentially the progressive political left in government stealing our kids from the family and the home.
In consideration of the effect of LGBTs fighting "discrimination," which is the new found designation for religious liberty, we see that they are infiltrating Christian organizations for political reasons such that they are being granted more rights to destroy those organizations by their cohorts simply because they are good at it. It's all part of the conspiracy of the left.
So, we should not accept that progressive and elitist politics should be the default setting in American political discourse. If so, there will be no room for religious liberty in a world of secularism, personal autonomy and scientism, and already we are seeing many students in public schools yielding their independent thought to those who are more "educated and politically aware" than they are. Such are the elites who would rule the world as a progressive and evil leviathan which is already quickly gaining power in the social sphere of American political discourse.
JEFF
Posted: Thu, 03/29/2018 06:57 amI cannot help but think we are at the terminus of God's Romans 1 judgment when Christians try to excuse and defend this grotesque sin. "And, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them."