Another Great Moment in Censorship

Doesn't surprise me that this is in Florida.

Longwood parent Tina Harden was so disturbed by references to sex and drugs and foul language in the world of fictional teenager Jenny Humphrey that she is ignoring overdue notices and phone calls from her neighborhood library and its bill collector.

Harden refuses to return several books connected to the Gossip Girl series that detail Humphrey's life, even though she's had them since 2008.

"If I turn them in, they will be put back into circulation and they'll be available for more young girls to read," said the mother of three, who keeps the four books hidden in a closet. "Some material is inappropriate for minors."

Harden said she doesn't want them banned, but she does want the library to put a warning label on the four titles — one in theGossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar, and three in a spin-off series called It Girl — and make them unavailable to minors. The library refused but has agreed to re-shelve them in the adult-reading section.

"If we denied access to this particular title, it would be censoring," said Jane Peterson, the county's library services manager.

Moving them to the adult shelves wasn't good enough for Harden, and she wants "more say" as a taxpayer on what books are allowed on the shelves.  Sounds like censorship to me.

When it comes to free speech, I've always taken a libertarian stance on it.  And especially with the fact that I'm going to be an English teacher, this is one battle I'm sure that I might have to face at some point in my career.

I also believe that parents should be the gatekeepers on the type of material for their children.  However, they shouldn't be the gatekeepers for everyone else's children, as well.  What this woman is doing is stupid.  She should just give the books back and not deprive other people from reading them.

Although, to be fair, I shouldn't have made the Florida reference -- recently here in NH we had a case of a teacher getting in trouble for some books that parents considered inappropriate for their students in an elective class.  And several years ago a woman from Alexandria had issues with the Bristol Elementary School doing a read-aloud of "Harry Potter" books in the classroom, citing "witchcraft."

Update: Harden returned the books, but not before people offered to pay to replace them and sent their own copies of the books.