(no subject)

[sofiaviolet]

The Writer's Block prompt over at LJ made me lol. What (if any) books would you ban from a high school library? Are there certain subjects that you feel are inappropriate for teenagers regardless of literary merit?

The answer to that question is 'fuck that noise,' by the way. No hate speech (hate text(s)?). Other than that, I would rather teenagers read about sex than violence - but if I ruled the world, people wouldn't love/glorify/eroticize violence.

Related: my mom is a high school librarian right now (before that, she was retired, and before that, she was an elementary/middle school librarian, and before that, she was retired, and before that, she was a cataloger at a university). In particular, at a sports-oriented Catholic boys' school.

As I was such a voracious reader as a kid, she often turns to me for suggestions re: how to get these kids to read shit. We have come up with several solutions:
* books about sports! Biographies of athletes are relatively popular.
* the most mainstream-ly popular YA series of the moment! Teenage boys will apparently read Twilight and its sequels because their girlfriends do.
* graphic novels! This is fairly untested, as we are having trouble coming up with any graphic novels which will pass muster with the principal and interest the boys. Mom is not up on this stuff and pretty much everything I read would make the principal faint.

So your suggestions of graphic novels would be most appreciated, and remember that they must be read over and deemed appropriate by a rather conservative old Catholic [priest/friar/something].

Comments

[sofiaviolet]

I remember the elementary/middle school library at my school (my mom took over from a librarian who was the stereotype of mean and 'shhhh!!!' and all of that) had little heart stickers on some of the books, which meant that they were 'mature' and you weren't supposed to read them until 8th grade. Because somebody kissed, or something. *facepalm*

[turlough]

Oooh, it almost sounds like the way it was in my local library when I was a kid in the early 70s. You were not allowed to borrow books from the adult section until you were I think 14 or 15 but I got a dispensation because I'd read everything in the kids and teenagers departments by the time I was 12. I remember when I stumbled over the Swedish translation of McCaffrey's Dragonflight, quite an eyeopener :-)