Censorship in school libraries (and in any other library) is not something that I had ever considered until studying for my masters in teacher librarianship and now that I am aware of it I see examples and debates around this issue frequently. I found the Jenkinson article very thought-provoking and it forced me to assess where I sit on this issue now and how I will deal with it when I am eventually responsible for the selection and inclusion of materials in a school library.

The article was set in a Canadian school context but I definitely think that Australian schools are facing the same challenges. I was recently made aware of a case in which a primary-aged child had borrowed a book entitled “The Fall” and the teacher librarian who had loaned the book to him had faced a book challenge from the parent of this boy. It turns out that this boy’s father had had a catastrophic fall a couple of years ago that had led to his death and the mother was upset that the boy’s history had not come into consideration when the book was loaned to him. I was shocked to hear that such a benign book could result in a book challenge. However, when I asked why the boy himself would want to borrow such a book the teacher librarian explained to me that often children gravitate to books that contain subjects that are familiar to them.

This leads me to consider how important it is to include books on a range of previously seen as “controversial” topics. Young children and young adults do need to read about characters and situations that reflect what they are currently going through and to be able to seek possible comfort or solutions to their worries and anxieties. I am not sure yet how I would go about including such materials though. Should I just have them generally included in the collection or would I have the spines labelled according to their category or even in a special section? The future teacher librarian in me suggests that they should be included in the mainstream collection but the mother in me suggests that these books still need to be loaned out to students with care.

I feel that preventing censorship in libraries is very important in an age when we have recently debated and, in some cases, called for the removal of some Roald Dahl’s books that are now considered racist and inappropriate for school-aged students by today’s standards. It is imperative that the censorship that prevails now in the 21st century and some people’s attempts to re-write our history to suit their own narrative is not transferred into the selection process for school libraries. Students need to have access to books about all kinds of topics and be able to debate the content of these books freely in order to receive a well-rounded and balanced education.