“Banned” Books Week is long past, but efforts to push sexually explicit material on young children and misinformation about the availability of these books are not. As we round out our “banned” book series this year, let’s take a look at a few discouraging examples.
#1. The Anchorage School District provides elementary students with the book, “Wait, what?: a comic guide to relationships, bodies, and growing up.” The guide encourages children to draw genitals and includes explicit graphics.
#2. A new trend among fad-chasing school board members is being sworn in on explicit books. Earlier this December, Karen Smith, president of the Central Bucks County, Pennsylvania school district, was sworn in on a pile of “banned” books. “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” which details sexual encounters between young cousins and between college students, was in the stack.
