SASKATOON – A dad who turns into a plant, monster blood, evil masks – these are standard elements of R.L. Stine and his popular Goosebumps horror stories for children.
But some parents are asking whether these books belong in their school libraries. A Saskatchewan survey found 125 children’s books were challenged, as well as 26 magazines, videos or drama scripts. Rural school libraries received almost double the number of challenges as their urban counterparts.
Urban, rural policies
The survey was done by Elizabeth Roberts for the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild. As research for her master’s thesis, the Rockglen resident asked public schools in rural and urban areas if they had a written selection policy for their libraries, if it was used and if any books had been questioned or removed during the years 1992 to 1995.
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In an interview, Roberts said she knew formal challenges to books existed, but what really surprised her was the amount of what she called”soft censorship.” She said school staff often choose to avoid conflict by not buying controversial books.
“Budgets are sometimes just an excuse,” she said. But she also noted some school divisions such as Sask Valley and Davidson should be commended for their commitment to maintaining a good library and trained staff.
On the parental query list were Pigs and Giant by Canadian author Robert Munsch, The Witches and Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl and Sweet Valley High Romance by Francine Pascals.
Magazines that faced scrutiny included Flare, Sports Illustrated, Pro-Life News, Maclean’s, plus Disney videos.
Challenged by parents, staff
From the 97 surveys she received, Roberts found most of the people challenging the library resources were parents or guardians of the students. However, a third of the challenges came from school staff.
Roberts concluded that policies about selection of library resources were seldom used to resolve the situations.
Of the books and magazines that were challenged, 42 percent stayed in the library unchanged, 41 percent were removed from the library outright, 13.6 percent had student access restricted and 3.5 percent had sections blotted out or removed.
