books
'At least one of your favorite books has been banned somewhere.'
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY"—AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY —'THE CO
A Lawrence bookstore makes an annual display of books that have been challenged or banned from public and school libraries around the U.S.
By Josh Yancey
Kansan staff writer
There are people who have banned "Where's Waldo?" books John Hastie, co-owner of Terra Nova Books, 920 Massachusetts St., wanted to make that clear. He set up his annual display last week of books that have been banned or challenged, and the law has not.
and the large, colorful book, in which the reader searches detailed drawings of chaotic scenes for a striped-shirt-wearing bookworm named Waldo, looked out of place among "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Catcher in the Rye."
In 1989, parents in Michigan challenged "Where's Waldo?" because they said some pages contained dirty images. The book was pulled from library shelves in 1983 in East Hampton, N.Y., because of a drawing that showed a woman with a bibdin bottom but no top.
"At least one of your favorite books has been banned somewhere," Hastie said. "I want to remind people of this and let them know why.
"One good one was "Where the Sidewalk Ends," he said, referring to Shel Silverstein's popular 1970s-era children's book of poems. "It was said to promote cannibalism and glorify satanism."
The list of books that have been challenged in school districts for decades could just as well make up a parent's must-read list: the Bible, Richard Wright's "Black Boy," Katherine Patterson's "Bridge to Terabithia" and J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye."
So goes the clash between First- Amendment-rights advocates, conservative parents and school boards fearing for
their children's minds. Banning attempts were strengthened by a 1982 Supreme Court ruling that allowed the removal of books that contained vulgarity or were judged as lacking educational suitability.
American Heritage Dictionary. Removed from school libraries in 1976 in Anchorage, Alaska, and in Cedar Lake, Ind., for "objectionable language."
According to a press release from the American Library Association, the following books have been challenged or removed from public or school libraries:
Other books have been challenged or removed from library shelves. They Include:
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
"What's Happening to My Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-up Guide for Parents & Sons." Challenged at the Mount Morris, Ill., seventh-class grade because it was written "from a permissive point of view." One parent complained: "I don't think my 1.0-year-old son, or anyone's, needs to know that stuff."
The Olathe school district is involved in a federal judicial case that will determine whether a copy of the homosexually oriented "Annie on My Mind" will remain on school shelves. The book was donated to Olathe South High School by a gay-rights group, and the school board voted for its removal from the library.
William S. Burroughs "Maked Lunch." Found obscene in Boston Superior Court in 1965. The finding was reversed by the Massachusetts State Supreme Court the following year.
Alice Walker's "The Color Purple." Challenged in Oakland, Calif., for its "sexual and social explicitness" and its "troubling ideas about race relations, man's relationship to God, African history and human sexuality."
Source: American Library Association
Dee Brown's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" was removed in 1974 in Wild Rose, Wis., by a district administrator, who offered the justification that "if there's a possibility that something might be controversial, then why not eliminate it?"
of the board members who voted for the book's removal, acknowledged the case but would not comment on its specifics. He said the judge was expected to decide the book's fate within 30 days.
"The Diary of Anne Frank" was challenged in 1982 by four members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee who thought it was "a real downer."
"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was removed in 1988 from the Boulder, Colo., public library after a librarian complained that it endorsed a poor philosophy of life.
William Crowe, dean of libraries, said universities' book collections usually weren't challenged. Occasionally, he said, people were upset about extreme right- and left-wing propaganda that preached hatred of races or religions.
ple up to human experience."
Crowe defended KU's libraries as strongholds of all forms of literature. "Lots of books offend a lot of people," he said. "Our purpose is to open neo-
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Crowe said KU's Wilcox Collection at Spencer Research Library had been criticized for its right-and-left-wing literature. He said the collection was displayed in a manner that would prevent sensitive viewers from being offended. "We deliberately try to get these things," he said. "That is important. If you want to see it, you can. If you don't, you don't have to."
OCTOBER 10,1995 KU LIFE
After filing a missing persons report in April on his wife, Leasa, Bruce Jensen, 39, learned that Leasa was really feminine-looking Felix Urioste, 34, who had convinced Bruce to marry him in 1991 after a single sexual encounter during which Urioste remained clothed. Said the devout Mormon Jensen, to the Ogden (Utah) Standard Examiner, "there's no way to describe this feeling (of learning he was married to a man for almost four years)."
Lead Story
In a 1994 survey by the American Association of University Professors, Long Island's Nassau Community College was revealed to have the highest salaries of any two-year college in the country. The New York Times reported in June 1995 that one of the school's arts professors, who taught just two ceramics classes during the spring semester, has a $107.00 salary.
In February, William J. Stoecker, 37, was named in a 49-count bank fraud indictment. According to prosecutors, Stoecker — a former welder with only a high school education — somehow talked several bankers into lending him $400 million.
In July, Costa Rica's Supreme Court ruled that the country's hit-and-run driving law was unconstitutional in that it punished the driver who caused the accident if he fled. The court reasoned that, because murders and other criminals cannot be punished for leaving the scene of a crime — because of their right not to incriminate themselves
— hit-and-run drivers can take off, too. A driver involved in an accident but who was not at fault may still be required to stop.
FEUDS
INEXPLICABLE
According to a March Wall Street Journal story, the eyeglass industry in Germany is experiencing a vicious trade war in which smashing competitors' windows and pulling other pranks are becoming common. When optician Siegmund Reiss opened up a shop in a new building, he discovered that saboteurs has stashed rotting meat between his wall during construction in order to drive grand-opening customers away.
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