Chapter 3 reading for Foundations

[Nancy Milliken]

Reading chapter 3, A Door Half Open: Young People's Access to Fiction Related to Homosexuality, was interesting and thought provoking. When I looked up the books shown in this chapter in our district OPAC (28 schools), I found very little. Daddy's Roommate was not in any of our schools. One MS and one HS had Annie On My Mind. Three HSs had Rainbow Boys.
Because I found so little, I decided to try a few other titles that I know of. None of our schools have Heather Has Two Mommies. Three of them have And Tango Makes Three. This book does have homosexuality listed under one of the subject headings on the book's page in the OPAC.
Then I used homosexuality as a key word to see what would come up. It appears that our HSs have a good selection of fiction with homosexuality as a theme. One of the MSs has several NF books about homosexuality, as do most of the HSs.
I talked to my "boss" about this today (she is the director of Media for the district) and she did not feel that books like Daddy's Roommate or Heather Has Two Mommies belong in our elem schools since Loveland is so very CONSERVATIVE! She felt that there would be parential resistance to these two titles. She also said that when she was the Media Specialist at one of the HSs, the only time the NF homosexuality books left the shelf was when kids tried to sneak them into other kids"s so backpacks so that kids would be embarassed when their friends saw it in the backpack.

The article in Chapter 3, Race Matters: A Librarian Looks at Books About Racial Identity and Relationships, by Ed Sullivan, did yield different results when I looked up the titles listed in our district OPAC. Almost all of these titles were present in our HS library media centers and some of them in MS.

[Christy Meredith]

Last year, our librarian came in to read And Tango Makes Three to my group of high school sophomores. The kids found it very enlightening to hear that the book was one of the most censored (I believe in 2007). Some students of course supported it being censored, while most felt that it is up to them as people to determine what is appropriate for them and what is not.

[Nancy Milliken]

You know, I think that some of the resistance related to the age of the students. The high schools do have a nice selection of materials relating to homosexuality (especially fiction with a gay character) but not the elementaries.
You might be correct about the time...she was in a high school maybe 7 years ago. Maybe kids are checking out these titles more openly now. One gay student I know does tend to check out his books at the public library (fiction with gay characters/issues) and not the HS one.

[Josie Zoll]

It is really interesting to hear that there is little homosexual lit in your district. We have quite a few students at the high school level who check out the titles related to homosexuality and openly read them in class. I'm curious when your boss was a media specialist. I wonder if times have changed or if there is a difference among students' acceptance of homosexuality in different districts.

[Su A Eckhardt]

Fine work on your page and your blog posts. 2.0 for 5530 checked off!

Hmmm... so there are no real homosexuals in the Loveland area, but there are racial differences.