BTRTN, The Wendy Rant: On the Llano County Library Closures
Born To Run The Numbers invited guest contributor Wendy to address a small but astonishing news item: the trustees of the Llano County Library System will vote on whether to shut down its libraries rather than comply with a judge's ruling that it must return books that it had censored to the library shelves:
http://www.borntorunthenumbers.com/2023/04/btrtn-wendy-rant-on-llano-county.html
Excerpts: "This decision followed a judge's ruling that the library had to return to the shelves books it had previously censored. Titles included 'Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,' Maurice Sendak's 'In the Night Kitchen,' and 'It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health.'
"There are others, but I cite these three because I've read them. 'Caste,' by Isabel Wilkerson, was described by The New York Times as 'an instant American classic.' It's written for adults, who presumably can make their own decisions about it or of course, not read it at all if they don't wish, so why would it be banned? I found it to be enlightening. If you ever read 'In the Night Kitchen' to your children, you're probably madly googling it now to try to figure out what the heck is going on. I have an old copy of 'It's Perfectly Normal' in our basement which I read with my daughters when they were children.
"Rather than make these books accessible to readers, the trustees are considering closing the libraries. Closing them. Not in China. Or Russia. Or North Korea. In the United States of America. Maybe they'll backpedal and the libraries will remain open. But just the fact that this is up for discussion should be a noisy reminder not to ignore your rights."
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