I can appreciate the mother’s concern over the situation, but her behavior is inarguably misguided. This is the whole reason libraries have review committees. There have been books that I’ve wanted to throw out, but that’s my choice.

I do wonder if the book was in the kids’ section or if it was shelved with other illustrated books (ie comics) in the adult section?

Shameful. Just shameful. I’m going to check that book out of my library right now.

Rest assured, banning books is a well-documented bipartisan brand of fascistic lunacy.

In 2004, John Kerry and his rabid minions were pressuring Regnery Publishing to withdraw “Unfit for Command” from bookstores, while members of the Borders Books Employee Union were openly advocating sabotaging book sales. A message on the union’s members-only website urged:

“You guys don’t actually HAVE to sell the thing!

“Just ‘carelessly’ hide the boxes, ‘accidentally’ drop them off pallets, ‘forget’ to stock the ones you have, and then suggest a nice Al Franken or Michael Moore book as a substitute …

“I don’t care if these Neandertals (sic) in fancy suits get mad at me, they aren’t regular customers anyway. Other than ‘Left Behind’ books, they don’t read. Anything you can do to make them feel unwelcome is only fair. They are the people pushing retailers to cut costs, don’t forget. And they would censor your speech, your books, your music in a heartbeat, so give them a taste of it!”

At the same time, left-wing hitman David Brock of Media Matters for America sent a demand letter to Wal-Mart, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble urging them to pull “Unfit for Command” from their shelves.

In 2005, a University of North Carolina law professor, Eric Muller, called on his blog readers to get one of Michelle Malkin’s books banned from a national parks bookstore.

In 2006, two Democrat lawmakers, New Jersey Assemblywomen Joan Quigley and Linda Stender, called on merchants to ban the sale of Ann Coulter’s book, “Godless,” because of her remarks about anti-Bush 9/11 widows. “No one in New Jersey should buy this book and allow Ann Coulter to profit from her hate-mongering,” the politicians lashed out. “We are asking New Jersey retailers statewide to stand with us and express their outrage by refusing to carry or sell copies of Coulter’s book. Her hate-filled attacks on our 9-11 widows has no place on New Jersey bookshelves.”

So, the lesson learned is that, when you’re a liberal free speech advocate, it’s okay to defend one kind of offensive material, but perfectly fine to suppress another.

As for the Palin book banning myth, here’s what the nonpartisan Factcheck.org had to say about it:

“She did not demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library. Some of the books on a widely circulated list were not even in print at the time. The librarian has said Palin asked a “What if?” question, but the librarian continued in her job through most of Palin’s first term.”

Of course, actual facts seldom enter the conversation these days….so feel free to keep spinning your fairy tales.

I’m sure the kid thought it was funny…as all children would.

This book has absolutely no curriculum value to anybody?

Maybe, but it still gives out a better message than “If you dont approve of something, its ok to steal it rather than let it be seen by people who aren’t as idiotic as you”

And anyway, ALL books have value. Even if their only use is to give someone a laugh and brighten up their day.

but she wants to burn the book. She is fine and well within her rights as a parent to find it inappropiate and to talk to the school about it, but she wants it banned and burned, censorship that’s what that is. Inappropiateness can be determined in a variety of ways. I am sure the book was in the humor section. Now if this was an elementary school then yeah inappropiateness might be an issue, but still she should as a parent be active in her child’s reading habits/entertainment. Sounds like she is, to a weird facist extreme.

She plans to burn a book which is not hers, plans to have it stolen, and is standing in the way of allowing the authorities to review the material so that they can do the job they are charged to do. So damn right she’s a villain in this.

Agreed on all counts that the book does not have any educational merit, but anyone who thinks this lady is anything less than an agenda-driven lunatic is drinking the same water that she is. She is stealing the book so that she may burn it. In what world can anyone be remotely sympathetic to that?

@The Hipster Dad

Remember this is a public school. A place where we teach kids that reading is a chore.

I did say that she should return the book.

Or she could pay for it and burn it.

@thefourthman – She wants the book banned from a school library. She wants to burn the extant copy. She should return it to the school to be reviewed, but if she pays for the book, therre’s no reason she shouldn’t be allowed to burn it, since it would then be her property.

Censorship is when there is a law that says “you can’t say that.” When private individuals burn books, that’s vandalism,theft, and/or destruction of property — unless they own the books, then it’s not your business. When a school deems that a book shouldn’t be in the school library at the request of parents, well, that’s parents having a hand in their children’s education. If a business decides not to carry a book, that’s the free market. If a publisher decides not to publish a book, that’s business.

Not defending her keeping the book and burning it. I’m defending her right to object to the content and petition the school to have it removed.

The Bunny Suicides is a picture book. No words. It can’t be argued that it’s a book that even gets anyone interested in reading, because there’s no “reading” to do.

Again, the destruction of other people’s property is NOT COOL. Everything else is fine.

This is old news.

Update: http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2008/october2008/bunnieswontburn.cfm

How uptight of her not to find cruelty to animals funny – or to think it’s unhealthy for children.

@Mark Engblom – To characterize that rambling message as “a message on the union’s members-only website” is a deliberate piece of misinformation that you’ve either bought into or, more likely given the rest of your post, are deliberately disseminating. While it may have appeared on the site, it wasn’t the union’s position and saying calling it “a message on the union’s…website” is akin to calling any snarky remark I might make on another writer’s story “an article on Newsarama.” It’s preposterous, and from someone who’s encouraging people to visit factcheck.org to reconcile myths about Palin, the intentional spreading of such nonsense is more than a little hypocritical.

@TJ Fosko – With “The Bunny Suicides is a picture book. No words. It can’t be argued that it’s a book that even gets anyone interested in reading, because there’s no ‘reading’ to do,” you are officially no longer allowed to call yourself a comics fan. Clearly you don’t understand the concept of sequential art as a communicative medium.