CBLDF (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund)
Carol Tilley | April 19, 2013

Last month a Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) directive seemed to require that copies of Marjane Satrapi’s memoir Persepolis be removed from classrooms and school libraries. A later memo clarified that the book was allowed to remain in libraries; the concerns about its content — specifically, visual depictions of acts of torture — were limited to its instructional use in seventh grade.

How CPS handled this particular situation is beyond the scope of my comments. Similarly I don’t intend to address whether seventh graders are equipped to handle a couple of pages of visually stylized barbarism. Instead, as a librarian, I want to touch on the issue of what belongs in a school library’s collection.

Read on…

Original NDLA IF post

Related article:
“Sex, violence, and Radical Islam: Why ‘Persepolis’ Belongs in Public Schools“
(The Atlantic | Noah Berlatsky | March 19, 2013)

5 NBC CHICAGO
March 15, 2013

Some Chicago Public Schools students are up in arms over a perceived book ban, but officials are calling it a misunderstanding.

The book in question is Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, a graphic memoir of a girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution that features descriptions and images of torture.

Some CPS schools starting receiving directives this week to remove the book from the library, prompting some students and teachers to plan a free speech demonstration at Lane Tech High School Friday.

“We believe that removing books from kids is chilling and an act of censorship,” said Barbara Jones, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom. “It reflects a totalitarian society that this book is all about … the Iranian revolution.”

But CPS Superintendent Barbara Byrd-Bennett issued a letter Friday denying that the book was not being banned, but was being removed from the curriculum for seventh graders where it was deemed not appropriate.

Bennett says the book is only appropriate for junior and senior students and those in Advance Placement classes, and a determination is being made whether it can be added to the curriculum for eighth through tenth grades.

However, Jones says CPS officials have not explained why the book initially being removed from high schools when it’s an issue for seventh graders.

UPDATES:
“Persepolis removed from Chicago Public Schools for “graphic illustrations and language”; OIF & FTRF respond”
(ALA OIF & FTRF BLOG | March 15, 2013)

“Chicago School District Under Fire for Restricting Access to ‘Persepolis’”
(Publishers Weekly | Claire Kirch | March 15, 2013)

“CPS students were driving force in protest against book ban”
(Chicago Tribune | Lolly Bowean & Kim Geiger | March 15, 2013)

“Lane Tech Students Hold Morning Sit-In To Protest Persepolis Book Ban”
(Progress Illinois | Ellyn Fortino | March 18, 2013)

“Kids Right to Read Project Responds to Chicago Public Schools Demand to Remove ‘Persepolis’”
(National Coalition Against Censorship | March 18, 2013)

Follow @oif and @ ftrf on Twitter for more updates on this continuing situation.

CBR: COMIC BOOK RESOURCES
Brigid Alverson | May 4, 2011

Yaoi manga is a niche genre, but like all niche genres, it has a devoted following. Yaoi readers gobble up the books like romance fans read Harlequin novels, which is not surprising as they are basically the same thing, except that yaoi 1) is manga, 2) is a love story between two men, and 3) often includes lots of sex.

It’s hard to know whether number 2 or 3 above is responsible, but Amazon has instructed at least one publisher to remove its yaoi books from the Kindle store, while allowing considerably more explicit male-female titles to remain.

View entire article

By Brian Hughes | Crestview News Bulletin | July 2, 2010

Access full article.

“A Japanese serial graphic novel genre popular with young teens has raised the ire of a Crestview mother whose teenage son got hold of an adult version of the genre from the Crestview Public Library. “Manga” depicts highly stylized adventure and, occasionally, violence in fantasy settings.

Margaret Barbaree, founder of a citizens’ group called Protect Our Children, presented examples from a manga book to the Crestview City Council Monday evening that she described as “graphic” and “shocking,” taken from material she said is “available to children” at the Crestview Public Library.

“My son lost his mind when he found this,” Barbaree said of the manga book from which her examples were taken. She said her son had removed the book unsupervised from the library’s general stacks last summer and put it in his backpack. “Now he’s in a home for extensive therapy.”

…

Barbaree said Library Director Jean Lewis explained to her that there is a demand for manga, and that the library strives to meet the needs of its patrons.

Council President Charles Baugh Jr. assured Barbaree that “We have safeguards in place to protect our children and we have committees that review library purchases so they meet the standards of the [American] Library Association.”

…

Lewis said the manga available in the young adult section of the library is oriented toward young teen readers and does not contain the adult themes of the book Barbaree’s son took. That book had been in the general stacks, on a top shelf in a section with other graphic novels and comic books not geared toward young readers.

“We have policies and procedures in place to prevent underage children from accessing those materials,” Baugh said.”