Barbara Koehler: Trying to get pornographic book removed from Moultonborough school

To The Daily Sun,

Are you aware that your school library contains pornographic books? There has been a list of books published that are in school libraries (thanks to the American Library Association) that would be defined as pornographic according to New Hampshire legislature. If an adult gave one of these books to a minor outside school, they could be arrested for promoting pornography. Yet, the libraries, unfortunately, are not bound by the New Hampshire law.

A concerned citizen has been trying to get one of these books removed from the Moultonborough School Library. The process includes a school committee with school members and one outside citizen to review the book; it then goes through the superintendent and the school board.

On May 15, the school board voted 4-1 to keep the book in the school library. Their rationale was not to restrict parents of the freedom to allow their child to read the book. A parent must notify the school to not allow their child access to books with sexual abuse, assault and battery, date rape, sexual nudity, profanity, violence and alcohol and drug use, which this book contains, or else a student is free to check out the book with no parental notification.

The school should not assume parents even know these books are in their school library. For some reason, the streaming of this meeting was flawed so you cannot hear the discussion on this topic.

I urge parents to get involved and insist these books be removed to protect the students. There is no academic value to these books. Instead, these books have been documented as harming some children. A list of suggested books can be found at: s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21100459/ircm4llist11521.pdf

Barbara Koehler

Moultonborough