Hurrah!

[erastes]

Very pleased to see that due to more supporting signatures than complaints, Scholastic have reinstated "Luv Ya Bunches" back into their catalogue.

http://gayrights.change.org/actions/view/tell_scholastic_to_stop_censoring_gay_friendly_books

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Comments

[reddwarfer.livejournal.com]

It's great that they reinstated it, but it's disheartening that they removed it to start.

I'd rather our successes in the lgbt community be proactive and not reactionary all the time.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

It's whack-a-mole. Easier to wait until the tighty-righties go after something... because until they start attacking, a 'thank you for being fair' letter doesn't have the same effect.

[reddwarfer.livejournal.com]

I was more thinking that it'd be nice if they actively worked to be more inclusive instead of actively working to be the opposite. >.> People fail, generally.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Yeah. But the right wing is tightly organized and they have been hovering like vampire bats over the school system for at least thirty years - when they virtually took over the Texas school system and got creationism into science books. Folks in education can count on opposition to any deviation from fundamentalist norms... if you call that normal. As for Scholastic - the word I got was that they removed it because they had previously had complaints about glbt-friendly books. That they restored it so very quickly makes me think they're willing to be inclusive if they can justify it to whomever makes the money decisions.

[spindriftdancer.livejournal.com]

It's insidious. Even at the library level. I've pointed out some places where it's happening, and nobody is willing to do anything about it.

Pretty crappy.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

What can I do to help locally?

Do you think a petition at Out on the Shelf over in Guelph (ah, poetry) would help? How about the local GLBTQQ2Sefghijklmn group at UW?

[spindriftdancer.livejournal.com]

Well, I meant at the place where I work, but the public library could use a few extra novels as well.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Hm. That I can do....

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

If you want to check with the West Hartford Public Library, I think they could use some LGBT books. There's exactly ONE copy of Maurice in the entire Connecticut library system.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Good grief. Actually, spindriftdancer is local, so I meant donating a copy of one of my books to our library here in town. I get an author discount, but there's no way I could afford to send books all over the place. And add to that the issue of whether a book would be safe in a library. Back in Columbus, GLBT books disappeared from the shelves with appalling frequency -- we even had some self-appointed censor who tore out two pages of "Flying Colors" in which Horatio Hornblower had an extramarital affair.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Oh, good grief. That's RIDICULOUS. It's not like Horatio having an affair was going to hurt anyone.

I see that you can't afford this. I'm sorry. It sprang to mind because Erastes suggested getting books out of the library for review...and that's when I found that Maurice barely exists, as far the Connecticut public library system is concerned.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I think the little town of Guelph has a wonderful library. All GLBT, all volunteer -- and it's surprisingly well-stocked. Gay and lesbian bookstores may have been forced out of business by the big-box stores and online shopping, but if a community had enough interest, maybe a library could be organized.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

It's all jaw droppingly amazing to me. If our local town library doesn't have a book, then we can get them imported from another county that does--and if the country-wide system doesn't have it, then we can tell the library to order it. And they do! Couldn't live in a country that has that level of idiocy!!

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Oh, a lot of libraries have interlibrary loans set up -- but in the US, they're local systems, usually municipal, and some are just awful. My sister's in a small town -- well, actually, they're just outside the city limits -- and even though they pay the county taxes that support the library, they're expected to pay $50/year as "out of town" users. And due to local literacy levels, the single largest fiction category is pink paperback romance. Which is all well and good, but not at the expense of historical, sci-fi, mystery, and even general fiction!

On the other hand, there are many US states that cover more geographic territory than England. That was one thing I was amazed at, when I visited a few years ago. The distances are much shorter, but it takes as long to get from London to, say, Portsmouth as it does to get from Columbus, OH to Indianapolis.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[ammonite7.livejournal.com]

Hoo rah. I am joining up.