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Heard a librarian in Chicago explain why she removed 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and it actually made sense
I used to be super against any kind of book banning, like full stop. But last month I caught this talk from a librarian at the Chicago Public Library who said she pulled Mockingbird from the kids section because it uses the n-word over 50 times and she kept having to explain to 8 year olds why their classmates were crying. She said she moved it to the teen section with a note about context instead of just yanking it completely. That specific approach got me thinking maybe there's a middle ground between banning and ignoring what kids actually go through. Has anyone else seen schools do this kind of move rather than a full ban?
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the_jenny10d ago
I mean, are kids really that fragile though? I get that the n-word is heavy but 8 year olds hear way worse stuff on the playground or on YouTube every day, and they survive. Feels like grownups are projecting their own discomfort onto kids who probably wouldn't even notice if we didn't make a big deal about it. Moving it to teen section with a note seems fine I guess, but acting like a bunch of 3rd graders are having meltdowns over a book might be a stretch. I dunno, maybe we're overthinking how much this actually affects them.
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