Robie Harris Censored Timeline

2001, October 08: It's Perfectly Normal

By Robie Harris. This work was challenged in Anchorage, Alaska, in the Spring of 2001 but could not be reviewed until the new school year. In September, the Controversial Issues Committee was reconvened to review the book. They voted 10-3 to recommend continued unrestricted access in elementary schools. This decision was part of the advisory process to the Superintendent.

On 08 Oct., the Anchorage School Board met in a regular session. The disposal of this challenge was one of the items on the agenda, with the Administration recommending that its use in elementary school be restricted to those with parental permission, but unrestricted use for grades 7-12. After testimony by parents and teachers and some discussion, this motion was passed and the book was restricted to middle and high schools.

[For an interesting indepth look into a review process at work, you can check out this copy of the minutes particular to that portion of the meeting or view or download an entire copy of the minutes of that meeting in PDF. --MN]

Return to chronology 08 Oct 2001

2001, December 27: It's So Amazing: A Book About Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies and Families

By Robie H. Harris. This is the second challenge to a work by Mr. Harris at the Hudson Public Library in River Falls, Wisconsin. A previous sex education work, It's Perfectly Normal, was challenged in October and subsequently moved to a section for older readers. That work contained graphic illustrations of sexual intercourse. It's So Amazing is a work for children who notice older children going through puberty and are beginning to ask about human sexuality. Its target audience is the 8-10 year old group.

It's So Amazing was challenged when a patron wrote a letter of complaint. The issue was reported to be scheduled for scrutiny at a meeting on 14 Jan 2002.

Return to chronology 27 Dec 2001

2002, January 21: It's So Amazing: A Book About Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies and Families

By Robie H. Harris. Library trustees voted 4-3 to refuse a patron's request for removal and kept this book on the shelves.

The review process involved arguments by two groups of five speakers each; one in favour of removal and one against. Darla Meyers, who wrote the letter of complaint about the book that triggered the review, argued that parents might suspect sexual abuse if their child began using terms found in "It's So Amazing."

The swing vote seemed to have come from Slater Lampman, who consulted the state handbook for library trustees and quoted from the handbook that it is in a democracy's interest for public libraries to hold materials with wide ranging perspectives.

Return to chronology 21 Jan 2002

2002, August 26: It's Perfectly Normal

By Robie Harris. It was challenged in Montgomery County, Texas, by individuals from the Cut and Shoot community. They showed up before the Commissioners Court unexpectedly to complain about the book, which is a sex education work. They had not formed into a group at the time. They went to Commissioners Court to voice their complaints after being advised about the presence of the book by a group called Republican Leadership Council. No vote was taken among the commissioners, but it was reported that the consensus was that the book be removed from libraries immediately.

Comments reported in the articles I read are:

• "It's not sex education. It's pornography. It's horrible."
  --Frances Brown

• "Vulgar"
  --Wynne Harris, retired elementary school teacher

• "We had only seen a few pages of the book dealing with homosexuality and abortion. When we saw the whole book, we were shocked. It is very graphic. I would call it pornography."
  --George Herzog Jr., commenting on when he had seen the book for a pro-life meeting elsewhere

• "do everything in our power to ensure that book is taken out of the library immediately."
  --Judge Alan Sadler

• "tries to minimize or even negate that homosexuality is a problem." [...] "This is clearly a book for children about sexuality, and it clearly tries to steer the child toward being pro-homosexual or at least neutral."
  --Judge Alan Sadler

• "You don't have to read this book cover to cover to understand its content."
  --Judge Alan Sadler, after skimming quickly through the book

• "I was appalled when I found out this book was in our library. Homosexuality is leading to the moral decay of our country. This book promotes homosexuality and abortion. To have this book in our libraries promotes such things. To allow these things in this county brings us down."
  --GOP state delegate Monte Lane, also a religionist and probably running on a platform of antidisestablishmentarianism, and who was reported to have said that the person responsible for the purchase of the four volumes should be fired.

[County Judge Alan Sadler apparently ordered the book banned and the rest of the board went along with it, however, the reporting of this incident at HoustonChronicle.com is substandard. Presentation of the facts is uncoordinated and the article is slanted to deliberately present the complaintants and Commissioners Court in a bad light. The report by Sue Thackeray at The Courier is much better, although it does not address the apparently unilateral removal of the book. It also contradicts the Houston Chronicle report on a minor point or two.

Sadler is definitely a censorship advocate, but the Library Director, Jerilynn Williams, was also at that meeting to discuss financial issues, and Sadler and she both agreed that the book would undergo a review process to determine suitability. Probably at her insistance; at least it looks as if she was the sole reasonable influence. However, given Sadler's advocation of censorship and misohomonism, I tend to not have a lot of confidence in that statement. The above complaints are pretty standard religio-political reactionism. The underlying cause of this incident is obviously that It's Perfectly Normal examines same sex relationships from a tolerant viewpoint rather than blindly condemning them. --MN]

Return to chronology 26 Aug 2002

2002, September 12: It's So Amazing

By Robie H. Harris. This other sexuality book of her's came under fire in Montgomery County at a meeting that was being held to address concerns about It's Perfectly Normal.

At the meeting, Judge Alan B. Sadler said that he had received numerous comments, hundreds, perhaps thousands, about the challenge to It's Perfectly Normal, and that the public stance was fairly evenly divided. He is quoted as saying, "It frankly does not sway my feelings on wanting more control on what is on the shelves that is accessible to children in Montgomery County." Members of Republican Leadership Council, the Christian Coalition of Montgomery County and Christian churches in the area aslo called for the library director, Jerilynn Williams, to be fired, for a citizen review board, and for the county to withdraw from the American Library Association.

[I'm surprised the self-righteous bastards didn't call for her to be to be burned at the stake. You can bet that this so-called citizen review board will be composed solely of religionists amenable to any censorship action. Withdrawing from the ALA will defray any accountability, of course. --MN]

Return to chronology 12 Sep 2002

2002, October 24: Censorship justifications

By Judge Alan B. Sadler. This Commissioners Court official spent two hours in a public meeting defending his position in the move to suppress It's So Amazing and It's Perfectly Normal. He did so by insisting that the removal of the books did not constitute censorship because he was attempting to redress a perceived imbalance of countervailing viewpoints: that the library did not contain enough material condemning homosexuality.
(see my commentary about this waffling;

Return to chronology 24 Oct 2002

2002, November 18: It's So Amazing and It's Perfectly Normal

These books were returned to the school library shelves in Montgomery County, Texas, after undergoing a review process. The Republican Leadership Council was reportedly unsatisfied with this and that it also vowed to challenge hundreds of other titles currently on the shelves plus one recent purchase about child molestation that had not yet arrived.

[You can see more about this in an article archived at Anarchist Librarians Web. That article cites the original source as http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/thisweek/zone01/news/1669724. --MN]

Return to chronology 18 Nov 2002

2003, October 21: Report of a challenge to It's Perfectly Normal and It's So Amazing

By Robie H. Harris. Both books were removed from the proper section of the stacks and moved to the adult section in Texas, Fort Bend County Libraries. The decision to move the books seems to have been made prematurely by County Librarian Carol Brown after a conversation with County Judge Bob Hebert. It was reported that Judge Hebert told Ms. Brown that the review policy had not been approved by commissioners court and was not a valid policy, and that he said the books in question need to be in the adult section, although he did not specifically ask her to move the books. Ms. Brown unilaterally moved the books to the adult section in anticipation of a written complaint from a Sugar Land resident because she had no legal position by which to stand by the review process.

[I will definitely call this a censorship incident. For one thing, It's So Amazing targets the 12 year-old audience, and It's Perfectly Normal is for the 14 year-old audience. Neither one belongs in the adult section at all. Secondly, the librarian was pressured into moving them before the review process was properly initiated. Conclusion: this is a case of one parent deciding what the children of other parents are not allowed to see. Then too, there is the issue of the Commissioners Court micromanaging the library and unilaterally striking down the review process because the court had not approved it. Have you gotten Big Brother's permission to lend out books today?

I also take exception to this negative affective connotation in the source article in the Fort Bend / Southwest Sun newspaper:

The books contain frontal nudity, and discuss the use of condoms, homosexuality and abortion.

That's just from the writing, however, although I would like to say: first off, those are illustrations, not photographs, and the ones in It's Perfectly Normal, at least, are appropriate for the target audience and are simply drawings of the human body; secondly, what else would you expect to find in a book about human sexuality? Blank pages, perhaps? --MN]

Return to chronology 21 Oct 2003

2003, November 18: Report on challenge to It's Perfectly Normal

By Robie Harris. It was reported in the Greely Tribune that Jeannie McAllister, a resident of Evans, Colorado, is challenging It's Perfectly Normal, which challenge will be considered at the Weld Library District meeting for December. Ms. McAllister normally checks over the books her children select, but this time they had taken too many for her look through. The children are eight and five years old respectively, and It's Perfectly Normal is written for the twelve to fourteen age group. Ms. McAllister challenged the book on the grounds that it is "mildly pornographic". Despite the recent refusal of the Weld Libary District to remove two other books, Ms. McAllister is adamant that she will not take "no" for an answer.

[Addendum (20 Dec 2003): On 16 Dec the library board of trustees voted to keep It's Perfectly Normal on the shelves by a vote of 4-3. It was reported that Ms. McAllister was unhappy with the result and that she intended to picket the library. --MN]

Return to chronology 18 Nov 2003

2007, November 19: A proscribable obscenity complaint against It's Perfectly Normal

By Robie Harris. Over the summer, JoAn Karkos, of Lewiston, Maine, checked out copies of It's Perfectly Normal from both the Lewiston and Auburn public libraries. She then refused to return the books, although she did send each library a check to cover the cost of replacing them. On this day, she filed a a one-page complaint that the library was in violation of Lewsiton's obscenity ordinance by having It's Perfectly Normal on the shelves. The crux of her complaint are illustrations of nude, pubescent children, and in particular of young adults masturbating and of a young woman examining her genitalia with a hand mirror. City officials met during the afternoon to discuss the complaint and the ordinance. When the meeting ended the complaint remained under review so that ordinances and other materials could be examined. The municpal ordinance bans depictions of masturbation and other activities, but also makes allowances for context, and the book is very clearly a sexual he alth manual.

Ms. Karkos is quoted from a telephone interview: "No. 1, I want awareness. People are simply not aware of what this book means. And when they find out, they don't want it to exist at all and they certainly don't want it in their libraries and their schools." Lewiston Library Director Rick Speer said that the obscenity complaint "boggles the mind". He also pointed out that book also discusses abstinence and sexual crimes.

Also of some note: as a result of her refusal to return the borrowed material the Lewiston Public Library board chose to file charges of theft. As of this writing, Ms. Karkos was scheduled to appear in court on 19 Dec.

[Ms. Karkos assumes too much in her quoted statement. The censorial constitute a minority in the U.S., and while those people won't want this book to exist at all, the idea that a majority won't allow it is simply unsupported and indefensible. And keep in mind that that same minority wouldn't allow admissions about sexual reproduction at all. --MN]