Group Defends Parents Who Press Book Bans

A conservative group released a report Monday accusing the American Library Association of calling some parents censors when they are simply concerned with what their children are reading.

Although the ALA cited 214 reported challenges to books last year, no book was banned from public libraries, according to a report issued by Focus on the Family, a non-profit Christian ministry.

“Their rhetoric is irresponsible, their methods are questionable and their conclusions are flat-out wrong,” said Mark Maddox, senior director of the ministry.

The group’s report took issue with an ALA report from last year about books pulled from the shelves of elementary schools. The report comes one week before the ALA sponsors “Banned Books Week,” which was set up to stress the need for tolerance of free expression.

The ALA reported there were at least 47 incidents in which books were taken from school libraries by the decisions of school boards, superintendents, teachers or school librarians after requests from parents.

That, according to the report issued by Focus on the Family, does not imply censorship. Instead, the report said, the actions constituted “involvement of parents in their children’s education and the selection of age-appropriate material.”

“So the target of the ALA is the parents,” Maddox said. “The ALA says parents are the enemy of free speech.”

Judith Krug, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the library group, blasted the criticism.

“These parents have set themselves up as the monitors of the community,” she said.

Krug said the complaints of one or two parents shouldn’t be enough to take a book from the shelves. She also said the number of incidents of challenged books in Monday’s report was very modest.

Of 214 incidents, 179 took place in schools and 35 occurred in public libraries, the group’s report said. Of the 35 incidents in the public libraries, four books were moved, three were anonymously vandalized, one was stolen and another one was not replaced after it was damaged, according to the group’s analysis.