Gay characters make problems for Scholastic | csmonitor.com

Will they or won’t they? That had been the question. Would a book with a pair of gay characters appear at Scholastic’s book fairs? If not, there was angry talk of a boycott. And if so, well, there is also angry talk of a boycott. The book in question is a novel called “Luv Ya Bunches” by Lauren Myracle. The book is aimed at readers ages 9 to 12 and it tells the story of four girls with nothing in common except that they are all named for flowers. Basically, it’s a story of friendship and the trials and triumphs of growing up, but it appears that children’s book publishing giant Scholastic had a concern about including “Luv Ya Bunches” in its elementary school book fairs this fall due, in part, to the fact that one of the girls in story has a pair of same-sex parents. At least, that’s what was reported by School Library Journal.

“Don’t expect to see Lauren Myracle’s new book ‘Luv Ya Bunches’ at Scholastic school book fairs this year,” wrote SLJ. “It’s been censored – at least for now – due to its language and homosexual content.”

Myracle told SLJ that Scholastic had asked her to remove the gay characters from her story if she wanted to see the book carried at the fairs. She  called the decision “appalling.” Scholastic defended the move. “Authors are often given the opportunity to make changes in the books to meet the norms of the various communities that host the fairs,” Kyle Good, a Scholastic spokeswoman told SLJ.

But now Scholastic says the book will appear – with gay characters intact – at middle school fairs in spring 2010.

(click here for the entire article)

Posted using ShareThis

Comment at Librarians do it Between the Covers.

No, I don’t work for Google (I wish). But I am posting this to urge you to use Google today. And periodically hereafter. If you haven’t Googled yourself already, you need to. Regularly.

The reason is that the Internet never forgets. The Internet remembers that you once spent hours every day on an X-Files forum, or that you once posted photos from your brother’s graduation party to your AOL account. You can delete all you want, but it’s still out there, forever and ever. There for your friends to find. Your potential boyfriends and girlfriends. And most importantly, your potential employers.

Since the beginning of time, for us humans, forgetting has been the norm and remembering the exception. Because of digital technology and global networks, however, this balance has shifted. Today, with the help of widespread technology, forgetting has become the exception, and remembering the default. (NYT)

Here’s a story I’ll share, with all the names removed, of course. I was once on a search committee for a rather prestigious and well-paying position. This was a national search, conducted at the highest level of professionalism, and taken very seriously by every member of the committee. At the same time, everyone on the committee knew each other very well, and knew some of the candidates. With any profession, it’s always a small world, you know? Anyhow, after a few weeks or collecting resumes, narrowing those down to phone interviews, and then scheduling a few in-person, we commissioned background checks on those finalists. Nothing especially bothersome turned up. Then we Googled, and that’s where it got ugly — for one candidate, at least. This person wasn’t doing anything wrong, per se. She had broken no laws. But what we found was that she spent pretty much all day, every day hanging out on a forum for her favorite television show. All day, every day, including the ones where we knew she was working, at times we knew she was working. And no, she couldn’t have just been on vacation. Not every day for the past six months, including some where one of us personally had seen her in the office. I’ll give you one guess: did she get the job? Obviously not. Because to be frank, we weren’t about to pay someone six figures so she could chat online all day. This woman lost a job opportunity because of Google, and because she was stupid enough (sorry, but it’s true) to post on this forum using the same email address she’d given us on her resume. Using a screen name and a spare webmail address would have gotten her the job. But she didn’t so that, and Google was there to help us, and I can’t say that’s a bad thing. For us, anyhow. Not so much for her.

So if the Internet never forgets, why bother Googling yourself? Well, forewarned is forearmed, for one thing. Even if you’re not applying for a new job or planning on making any new friends any time soon, I still think it’s a good idea to know what’s out there about yoruself. Also, in the event that there is something potentially embarrassing about you on the Internet, while you won’t be able to erase it completely (thanks to the Internet Archive: Wayback Machine), sometimes you can at least “correct” it. Change your public address. Ask a forum moderator to remove an “incriminating” post. Take the photo of yourself chugging beers at a frat party down from the MySpace page you forgot you had — but that the Internet never will.

Comment at Librarians do it Between the Covers.

I can't find Shahar. He's done all of this before so he's really been the go-to guy for help with things, but he doesn't seem to be here today, and he wasn't here yesterday, and I'm not going to be here tomrorow, so I don't know how to make the Br tracer I need in order to go out to the field on Thursday.

And yes, this is stressful, but I feel like the way I'm reacting to it as opposed to the way I should be reacting to it are two different stories. Because, really, I just want to cry and give up, and that's not how I should be feeling because of this. And it frustrates me that I feel like this which makes me feel even worse...it's no good.

GAH!

ETA 10.31AM: I finally got a hold of Shahar on the phone (I also tried calling him earlier but he didn't answer) and he said to talk to him in about an hour and he'd be able to help me. So this is good. I feel better. Kind of. A little. Maybe. Really, I'll feel better after it's all done, I hope.

ETA 2.19PM: So I talked to him, he gave me instructions, and then I spent the next hour or so trying to find an appropriate container to make the solution in, and failed. I found a container that Shahar used in 2008 that still has LiBr in it, so I called him to find out if I could use that container, and if I should keep the LiBr or if I can dispose of it, but his phone was off and his house line was busy. Not helpful. So I decided to go eat, and Ofer called as I was at the store and said he'd get a hold of Shahar and have him get back to me, and that was almost an hour ago. I have class in about half an hour, so clearly this isn't going to happen today. Which just irritates me cause there's no reason I should have to spend an hour trying to find a 20L container, finally find some, and then be told actually we can't use those because we don't know what's been in them, so try to ask someone if they have one that's clean that you can use...except, he did this at lunch time, so no one's around! Arg! So, maybe I'll get to Shahar again today, maybe not, but worst case scenario, we'll just do it next week. I don't have the patience or the energy to deal with this insanity and stress to get things done on some magical deadline and then not be able to get anything I need in order to get things accomplished. And this is basically how things work here. This is far from the 1st time this has happened, and I'm sure it won't be the last, it's just insanely frustrating that I've spent so much time and energy on this ridiculous nonsense of trying to find an appropriate container instead of putting my time to something more useful. I've wasted most of my day on this now. It frustrates me and makes me mad.