How have your various roles based on your age, family background, societal position, religious beliefs and profession influenced your stance on censorship of children’s literature collections?

I have a grand total of 52 days working in a school library. So far, I haven’t taken a lot of notice of the books that have been added to the collection because they’ve been part of the school’s standing order subscriptions. I have just trusted that they’ve selected appropriate books for primary school kids.

Just this week I came across a book called The List of Things that Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead. It came to my library in this month’s standing order from Scholastic. The story is about two parents who divorce, and the father gets married to his new boyfriend. I immediately wondered – would there be any challenge to this story? It was the first time I really thought about censorship through a professional lens.

My childhood was very sheltered. I was taken to church every Sunday, and taught traditional middle class Australian values by my teacher parents. But as I moved into adolescence, I felt more and more like I’d been blocked out of parts of my world and I was worse off because of it. Books were one avenue for me to find out about sensitive issues; I think that it is important for kids to have opportunities to learn about society and values, otherwise they’ll be like me, inexperienced in adult situations. Ultimately, therefore, my stance on censorship is fairly lenient. I do wonder if that will change if a serious challenge is made to a book in my library.