I think when I was young (in the 80s/90s), if you were under 12 you had to have an adult with you to check out books from the teen and adult section of the public library (though I think parents could give blanket permission that was noted by the library which I’m pretty sure is what my mom did). After 12, you had freedom to borrow whatever you wanted without questions from the librarians. I’m sure some of them might have checked with you if there was something super violent or explicit in your pile though but you know, that’s not that common. They’re not brainless professional who care nothing about their patrons. They often care a whole lot.

To answer the question, librarians and library professionals decide what is shelved in the PUBLIC library. If a book is not borrowed, it gets taken out as it is not serving the community. If one is borrowed a lot, it stays. Just because SOME people might think children or other groups can’t have access to certain books, that doesn’t mean the library has to obey. It’s there to serve the whole community and unfortunately for some of these people you just do not get to control what other people and their children do or read. Why do others have to go without because you can’t be fucked to check in with your child on their reading choices (I maintain that for the most part, parents should not do that anyway). The community does not have to bend to your fears of your son perhaps reading about gay dudes without your consent. Your bigotry or religious beliefs or values etc do not take precedence over others’

The issue with letting the community have a free for all to come decide what a 13 year old should be reading is that these are the people who show up to such meetings of the mind. Pic from the article, which some of you haven’t read. I don’t think busybody boomers on a (usually faith based) moral purity mission should be the ones curating the selection in a public library, period.

I think this is a targeted nonsense to distract people on a local level from actual serious political issues like crumbling infrastructure, multiple direct threats to democracy, the rise of fascism, and the acceleration of the decline of our material conditions.

I think this book stuff specifically is probably mostly far right astroturfing and then some local groups feeling emboldened by that. Literally never seen this level of local political action in my lifetime, across locations.

Librarians and other library professionals.

At a public library, that’s ridiculous. A 10 year old isn’t driving to the library, his parent or legal guardian is taking him. It’s a bit different in a public school library.

Every book is a children’s book if the kid can read

Lovely to see the only books these parents have problems with largely are focused on LGBTQ+ and non-white stories… /s

If you don’t want your child reading a particular book…don’t let them…why is this so hard?

From the mouth of Mitch Hedberg “all books are children’s books if the kid can read!”

Joke aside I agree: if someone can actually read a book (and has the desire to) they’re likely old enough to read it.

While librarians do usually determine what is age appropriate, parents can over ride that. When I was 5yo my Dad and I would go to the library on Saturdays. One day I could not find any book I had not read in the children’s section and went to the older kids area but the librarian said I was too young. Went to my Dad to complain. He took me back to the librarian and said that I had his permission to read any book I wanted and he would monitor what I was reading - and put that in writing! Bless you Dad!

Another mom, Natasha Stringam, recalls how her 12-year-old son recently came across a book “about a boy kissing another boy and things that really aren’t appropriate at that stage of development for children,” she says.

If your 12 year old can’t handle kissing, you have failed them as a parent. But I think we all know what her actual issue is…

The funny thing about “Parents Against Bad Books” is that not a single member is young enough to have a minor child.

So many of these groups like Parents Against Bad Books are completely disingenuous about their real agenda. If you have a look at the books they typically protest, it’s clear that it’s often not about “age appropriateness” and more about pushing a political agenda. They don’t have a problem with sex education, they have a problem if the book about sex education talks about trans people. If it has anything to do with the gays or critical race theory, it’s on their ‘bad’ list.

So long as you’re equal about the logic behind declaring certain things not “age appropriate”.

If it’s not okay for a kid to read a book where two men are married cause “They have sex” even when it’s never so much as implied? Then it’s not okay for them to read a book where it’s much more blatant that a heterosexual couple had sex.

Dumbest shit ever.

Libraries determine what is available.

People determine what they check out.

Well, I just added another book to my TBR. My grandma was the librarian when I was a kid. By age 12, I’d left the kid books in the dust. At that point, I’d read every Dean Koontz and John Saul book in the place. I’d tackled some of Robin Cook’s stuff and was making my way through Stuart Woods. The one and only time my grandmother ever came close to censoring what I read was in high school when I checked out Flowers in the Attic because everyone in school was talking about it. She didn’t bat and eye when I brought it up and checked it out to me. She couldn’t quite hold back the little mutter under her breath though. She said, “That woman is one sick puppy.” She let me have the book though and a couple more in the series afterward. Her little grumble was enough to clue me in that the relationships in the book were not normal which was all I needed to read the book in the right mindset.

Parents should have an idea what their kids are reading and be willing to talk about anything their kid comes to them with. If there’s something in a book that the parent thinks the kid needs some front loading on, they should do so in as brief a way as possible. There are very few books that should actually be denied to kids and those should just be a not yet rather than never.