{"id":2148,"date":"2016-12-02T07:21:44","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T15:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/?p=2148"},"modified":"2016-12-02T07:21:44","modified_gmt":"2016-12-02T15:21:44","slug":"childrens-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2016\/12\/childrens-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Children’s books"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"you<\/a>It’s an evergreen story: great books are removed from a school’s library because a few parents have complained about their being unsuitable for children. Today it’s two American classics: To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em>, and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<\/em>. From Reason<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Marie Rothstein-Williams, a white parent of a biracial high school student first raised objections to the books’ presence in school libraries and classrooms at a school board meeting last month, saying:<\/p>\n

“I keep hearing ‘This is a classic, this is a classic.’ I understand this is a literature classic but at some point I feel the children will not or do not truly get the classic part, the literature part \u2014 which I’m not disputing this is great literature \u2014 but there is so much racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you can’t get past that.”<\/p>\n

WTVR also quotes Rothstein-Williams as saying, “Right now, we are a nation divided as it is.” Another Accomack County parent reportedly worried that because the slur can be found at a book in their school, students will “feel that they are able to say that to anybody” and thus the books should be removed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The reactions on my news feeds are, well, just what you would expect, with equal scorn on the parents, and on the school board that will temporarily remove the books until there is a full hearing on the matter. The approbation is from liberals and conservatives alike (though the language they use differs: conservatives complaining of “political correctness”, liberals complaining of the sheer stupidity).<\/p>\n

If you’ve been following arts news feeds the past month or so you’ll know that the flavor of the month in the instrumental-justification-of-the-arts is empathy<\/em>: museums and theatres and music are all going to work to foster empathy in this divided nation. It’s not a view I share, but here’s me having a go at this empathy business:<\/p>\n

All<\/em> parents I know, every single one of them, puts some sorts of controls on the media, whether high art or low, that their children consume. I live in a progressive town. Around here, parents who let their five-year olds play Call of Duty face significant approbation. Game of Thrones is out-of-bounds for youngsters. Furthermore, it is expected that parents and schools will try to foster “healthy” ethics and values, and tastes in the arts. This website<\/a> is full of calls for the importance of arts education in schools, but that call is not for a free-for-all in whatever music or entertainment students want to consume. It is to be directed at cultivating some tastes over others. When it comes to what poetry we want our children to consume, we all have a little bit of Plato in us, whether we openly recognize it or not.<\/p>\n

And so, when we consider Ms. Rothstein-Williams of Accomack County, let’s acknowledge that it is not that she is a censor and we free-thinking intelligent worldly people are not. It’s that she is making a claim about a couple of specific works, for a specific reason, that we don’t happen to share, even though we might think there are other<\/em> works that would indeed be inappropriate for the school library or classroom. And in that light, the discussion ought to turn not on censorship per se, but on the consequences of teaching these particular books to schoolchildren. And for those who think the books are fine to teach (and I am one of them), some empathy with her position, and that of her son, is in order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s an evergreen story: great books are removed from a school’s library because a few parents have complained about their being unsuitable for children. Today it’s two American classics: To Kill a Mockingbird, and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. From Reason: Marie Rothstein-Williams, a white parent of a biracial high school student first raised objections […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-issues","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Plato-raphael.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dIW5-yE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1352,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/06\/summer-books-astra-taylors-the-peoples-platform\/","url_meta":{"origin":2148,"position":0},"title":"Summer books: Astra Taylor’s ‘The People’s Platform’","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"June 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Summer is time to catch up on reading all of those books I bought during the school year. Let's begin with Astra Taylor, The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age. I enjoyed the book, political economy applied to the contemporary digital media world. It covers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Astra Taylor","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Astra-Taylor.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3801,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2025\/05\/children-of-men\/","url_meta":{"origin":2148,"position":1},"title":"Children of Men","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"May 3, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"At Indiana University each spring there is an arts festival in honor of Kurt Vonnegut,\u00a0Granfalloon. This year\u2019s theme is his novel\u00a0Cat\u2019s Cradle, which is the book where he introduces the term Granfalloon (although, to my mind, not really as something one would celebrate; Karass would have been a better choice\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/image.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/image.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/image.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1557,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/10\/is-amazon-com-a-monopoly\/","url_meta":{"origin":2148,"position":2},"title":"Is Amazon.com a monopoly? (updated October 10)","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"October 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"In a comment on my previous post, on Amazon and what I saw as overheated rhetoric regarding censorship, BobG wrote: Arguing over a definition of censorship is avoiding the actual issue. Amazon IS making it difficult to get certain books (that\u2019s their announced strategy) and they are poised to become\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"still don't need it","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/jail-card-monopoly.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/jail-card-monopoly.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/jail-card-monopoly.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/jail-card-monopoly.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1330,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/06\/opera-and-arts-education\/","url_meta":{"origin":2148,"position":3},"title":"Opera and arts education","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"June 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Audiences for live performance of opera are aging and declining. What ought to be done about that? General Manager of New York's Metropolitan Opera, Peter Gelb, in an interview with the BBC (on which I posted, on a different topic, yesterday) has this to say: \"The box office has not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"much to learn","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/NYCschool.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1050,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/02\/is-amazon-good-for-readers\/","url_meta":{"origin":2148,"position":4},"title":"Is Amazon good for readers?","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"February 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I enjoyed George Packer's New Yorker article on Amazon, and recommend it. ArtsJournal's link to the story has the heading \"Is Amazon good for books? Not just publishers, but books themselves?\" The New Yorker's own sub-heading is \"Amazon is good for customers. But is it good for books?\" I find\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/02\/is-amazon-good-for-readers\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"good for this reader","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/amazon-warehouse-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/amazon-warehouse-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/amazon-warehouse-2.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/amazon-warehouse-2.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3683,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2024\/12\/on-owning-many-books\/","url_meta":{"origin":2148,"position":5},"title":"On owning many books","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"December 27, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"\"He [Gabriel Oak] also thought of plans for fetching his few utensils and books from Norcombe.\u00a0The Young Man\u2019s Best Companion,\u00a0The Farrier\u2019s Sure Guide,\u00a0The Veterinary Surgeon,\u00a0Paradise Lost,\u00a0The Pilgrim\u2019s Progress,\u00a0Robinson Crusoe, Ash\u2019s\u00a0Dictionary, and Walkingame\u2019s\u00a0Arithmetic, constituted his library; and though a limited series, it was one from which he had acquired more sound\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image-6.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image-6.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image-6.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image-6.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image-6.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image-6.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2148"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2153,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148\/revisions\/2153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}