Two book challenges.

• Texas' Quitman school district is buying out their superintendent's contract. No word as to whether or not that action is related to the September incident in which he ordered the Junior High School principal to remove Carolyn Mackler's Vegan Virgin Valentine "and others like it" from the school library.
• I blinked when I saw that Huxley's Brave New World had been challenged in Seattle, as it was also recently challenged in Maryland. In Seattle, it was pulled from the Nathan Hale High School curriculum after a parent complained about the book's depiction of Native Americans. The challenger is now attempting to have the book pulled from the curriculum of other Seattle high schools. But, you know. She's "not trying to in any way censor that book".

This comes up again and again in book challenge situations: someone calls for a book to be censored, but, in the same breath, they say that what they're doing isn't censorship. Because what they're doing, in that situation, is the right thing.

The thing is, I'd imagine that everyone who ever challenges a book feels exactly that way.

I wish people would own it, is all I'm saying. If you're going to challenge a book, fine. If you're going to stand up and say that you don't want to allow A to read B -- fine. Say your piece. Make your argument. Fight your battle. But please don't try to convince me that the situation is something other than what it is.