A children’s book has been pulled from the shelf and put on the watch list in Alabama because the author’s last name is ‘Gay’.
Marie-Louise Gay is the author of the picture book ‘Read me a story, Stella’, which is about a brother and sister who read books together and build a dog house.
It was placed on the list of ‘sexually explicit’ books by Huntsville-Madison County Public Library, reported AL.com. The content of the book does not depict anything about sex.
Gay’s publicist Kirsten Brassard said that the author’s books had never been ‘wrongly censored’.
“While it is obviously laughable that our picture book appears on their list of censored books simply because the author’s last name is Gay, the ridiculousness of that fact should not detract from the seriousness of the situation,” Brassard said.
Marie-Louise Gay’s book ‘Read Me a Story, Stella’ was published in 2013 and is now on the list of ‘sexually explicit’ books by the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library system
Kirsten Brassard, Marie-Louise Gay’s (pictured) publicist said that the author’s books had never been ‘wrongly censored’.
By order of executive director Cindy Hewitt (pictured), books in the library were to be cross-referenced with the Alabama Public Library Service of challenged titles, and then displayed on a spreadsheet.
Alyx Kim-Yohn, the circulation manager at the library, said the branch manager had them move the book to an adult section of the library, according to the Alabama political reporter.
By order of executive director Cindy Hewitt, books in the library were to be cross-referenced with the Alabama Public Library Service of challenged titles, and then displayed on a spreadsheet.
After some digging, Kim-Yohn found that there was no cross-referencing, and instead books were weeded out based on keywords like ‘lesbian’, ‘gay’, ‘gender’ and ‘identity’.
Hewitt soon admitted that the book should never have been added to the list and was only because of the word ‘gay’.
“We wanted to be proactive and allow our library staff to look at our collection and make decisions about moving materials to an older age group and not have someone from the outside dictating it to us,” Hewitt said.
She added that the library takes public opinion into account, but ‘our librarians are trained in collection development, and it should be their responsibility to examine the collection and make those changes.’
Gay’s book was just one of 233 books in line to be reviewed and possibly removed.
Gay’s book was just one of 233 books in line to be reviewed and possibly removed
Alyx Kim-Yohn, the circulation manager at the library, said the branch manager had them move the book to an adult section of the library
Hewitt said their list of banned books was designed around the Clean Up Alabama initiative, which is “dedicated to protecting the well-being and innocence of children by advocating for a safe and enriching environment in the children’s sections of our public libraries.” according to the initiative’s website.
“In recent years, many Alabama libraries have stocked their shelves with books designed to confuse the children of our communities about sexuality and expose them to material that is inappropriate for them. We believe it is the job of parents to determine when and how their children are exposed to sexual content,’ the website added.
However, Gay’s publicist hit back at the message.
It’s a hateful message in a place like a public library, where all children are supposed to feel safe, and where their curiosity about the world should be nurtured,’ Gay’s publicist said.
Hewitt herself said that she enjoyed that book and that it should not be removed from the young adult section.
Banned books are often young adult fiction, typically those that deal with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer themes or with queer protagonists, as well as those that tackle race and identity.
AL.com revealed that they received a copy of the book review list from the Madison Branch Library and found that 91 percent of 233 titles had the words lesbian, gay, transgender, gender identity, or gender nonconforming in the subject heading , which lists numerous themes for each book.’
Kim-Yohn refused to go along with this new list, admitting that aliens or not, it violated their ethics.
‘The decision has been made. There was no debate. There is no conversation. That’s what happened,” Kim-Yohn said.
“Why are we just moving all this unilaterally before anyone has even complained about these books?”
Kim-Yohn also hopes Hewitt apologizes for her mistake since many of the books on this new censored list at the Alabama library have previously been checked out and renewed 8,000 times.
“We understand and value our community, and the needs of our collection to reflect our community. We never eliminated any book. We just looked at it as a whole,’ Hewitt said.