This article includes explicit images from a sex-education book for teenagers.
My local library is quiet during the summer weekdays. It’s small, even though it’s meant to service the 50,000 or so residents in my neighborhood in New Jersey. It’s about two blocks from where I live, so I visit frequently to give my kids a place to safely explore and eye all of the colorful décor and illustrated books. The librarians have made a ritual of coming out from behind their desk to make faces and entertain my 2-year-old son and 8-month-old daughter, who they’ve dubbed their unofficial mascot.
During one visit, as my son sat quietly messing with a loose pack of Legos, I asked a librarian if she could help me find a book. The request caught her off guard.
“Do you have It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie H. Harris?” I asked. The librarian checked her computer. Her eyes widened when she recognized the cover. “Do we have this book?” she asked another librarian. She joined her at the terminal. “What is it? A sex-ed book for kids?” she asked. “I’ve seen this one before. It’s like, really, really detailed,” she answered with a nervous smile. “Like, very graphic.”
The senior librarian took a closer look. “Is this one of the ones that’s being banned?” she asked. “Yeah. That’s pretty much exactly why I wanted to check it out,” I told her. “Well, there’s two copies available at this other branch. We can order it and place it on hold for you.”
But I wouldn’t get my hands on Newark’s copy of It’s Perfectly Normal. When I returned a week later to pick it up, the librarian told me the copies listed as available had vanished. They weren’t checked out, but they weren’t on the shelves, either. Instead, one of the librarians offered to check out the book herself from her own local library and lend it to me.
I was eager to finally flip through it myself. I’d been fascinated by this book ever since it became the center of the right-wing push to censor books with sexual themes in the name of protecting the innocence of children. I found it funny and ironic that library books could terrify parents more than the actual dangers lurking on their smart devices.
R&I – TP
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