"We [librarians] don't act in the place of the parent. Whether I personally agree with an item or not is besides the point. It's about having access."
-- From "Anti-porn group challenges library" by Amanda Palleschi, St. Louis Post-Dispatch 9/4/2008
A local group wants the libraries to make it more difficult for teens to have access to some books they think are unsuitable for reading without parental consent.
The libraries say that to comply with the group's requests would constitute censorship, and maintain that they already have a process in place to review materials.
The local group, organized into a loose coalition by a local chapter of Citizens Against Pornography, began questioning books found in all [St. Louis] county library branches in August after Ellisville parent Laura Kostial approached some of the anti-pornography group's members. Kostial had visited the Daniel Boone branch several times with her 12-year-old daughter and found material she thought "shocking."
Kostial said she hadn't seen books aimed at teens with "erotic" passages at the county's Daniel Boone Library before a visit last year. The books in question range from non-fiction titles such as "The Little Black Book for Girlz, A Book on Healthy Sexuality" and "Growing up Gay in America" to contemporary series like the "Gossip Girl" books and a series of books with a protagonist named Alice by Phyllis Naylor ("Alice on Her Way" is one of them).
The group objects to passages in the books that range from suggested sexual activity to detailed descriptions of sex acts. Many are fiction. Some are non-fiction [how to have sex] guides.
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