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Dec. 6, 2023 Editor, The News-Gazette: In his column, Mr. Rose resorts to the cliché “book banning” to describe the desire of some to not provide certain books to children in public libraries.
Surely we all agree that not all books should be provided to children in public libraries. Surely Mr. Rose agrees with that. But does that mean that he would be benefited by a lecture about his “demand to ban a book,” “Nazi and Communists’ mass-burnings of differing books,” “intruding on personal choices,” a “censor’s view be(ing) foisted on a whole community,” and “banning books is the last defense” etc?
No, he would not, and neither were we. If Mr. Rose believes that all books should in fact be made available to all children in our public libraries, then he should make his case. If not, he is in full agreement with those he derides, he just happens to draw the line in a different place.
Fair enough, and the stuff of honest and good intentioned disagreement, and I imagine that his and my location of that line is probably pretty dang similar (kids tend to absorb that which they are ready to, and easily blow off that which they are not).
So I am hopeful that he will turn his full ire on the idea from some that our older children are too fragile to readily handle American classics from the likes of Mark Twain and Harper Lee (but without the Nazi references – assuming that working in something against Nazis somehow makes an argument correct is kind of lame).
A tirade with Nazis and Communists and book burning and book banning and censorship is an unhelpful overreaction to a perfectly reasonable disagreement about which books are appropriate to provide to children at our public library.
RUSS ORRISON Rockbridge County
