SARASOTA COUNTY, FL — Three more books with coming-of-age themes that include drug or LGBTQ references recently faced removal from schools, a district administrator told the Sarasota County School Board at Tuesday’s workshop and meeting.
A parent filed a complaint at Riverview High School about “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison and “Looking for Alaska” by John Green, Rob Manoogian, supervisor of the district’s instructional materials and library services department, said during an update on challenged materials at local schools.
A staff committee at Riverview reviewed “Lawn Boy” and made a recommendation about the book, he said. Though he didn’t specify the recommendation, he said the complainant was alerted about the committee’s decision and has an opportunity to appeal.
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Several members have since quit the committee and the school is in the middle of end-of-the-year testing, Manoogian said. The school will replace the outgoing members and the committee will review “Looking for Alaska.”
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“Lawn Boy” is a semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age novel about a biracial, young adult from a working-class family in Washington. It’s been challenged by some schools and libraries because of profanity, sexually explicit scenes and LGBTQ+ themes, according to the American Library Association.
“Looking for Alaska” is another coming-of-age tale about a high school junior at a boarding school who is grappling with the death of a friend. The book has previously been challenged at other schools and libraries because of a sexually explicit scene, offensive language, and the inclusion of drugs, alcohol, and smoking, the ALA said.
Manoogian also removed “Choke” by Chuck Palahniuk from North Port and Venice high schools after reviewing the book, circumventing the district’s process for removing challenged materials.
The book has previously been challenged for being sexually explicit and promoting homosexuality, the Illinois Library Association said.
These were the only two copies of the book — which is about a recovering sex addict and con artist who pretends to choke for a living — in the district. Looking through the data available to Sarasota County Schools, which dates back to 2013, one copy had only been checked out once since then, while the other has never been circulated, he said.
When reviewing the title, “it was very clear to me at the onset that the book was geared for an adult audience,” he told the board. “I think it’s very important that we recognize when talking about books, and as passionate as I am about reading and our kids reading, that it’s incumbent upon us as a school district that there are materials that I think everyone would agree aren’t written for K-12 students and they’re written for adults.”
Under new state laws, the district wouldn’t be allowed to buy copies of “Choke” because of its themes, Manoogian said. “Had someone brought that title to us now under current law for purchasing purposes we would not have been able to purchase it, nor would we have purchased it, because it was not designed, again, or written with that (K-12) audience in mind. It was written for an adult audience.”
During the public comment segment of Tuesday’s board meeting, a former elementary school teacher of more than 40 years called the district out for removing the book from library shelves without following the established process.
“They say we read to know we are not alone. These books remind students they are not alone, and that’s a comfort,” Mary Ginley said. “It certainly was to me when I was a teenager – short, geeky, awkward, loaded with acne and not one bit cool. We also read to learn new things, to be exposed to new ideas, to understand our world. School prepares students for our complex, ever-changing world, and one way they do this is by the wide variety of books they put in our school libraries.”
She continued, “Every time a book is removed, it further undermines the faith we have in our district staff and leadership that bought the book in the first place.”
What’s worse than the book being removed, is that “the proper procedure was not followed,” Ginley said. “If we don’t, who knows what books will disappear next week or next month.”
“I do take the process seriously, but I also take our responsibility as a board that oversees education to respect all that role,” board chair Bridget Ziegler said. “There is a balance and we do need to protect and preserve that.”
She read a March 25 email from Manoogian during the meeting.
“I am the first one to defend the integrity of those policies, however, given the changes in legislation and vetting new titles, I believe we are within our rights to remove this title” considering the state’s guidelines, he wrote, according to Ziegler.
In Manoogian’s email, he said the book was “not age- and grade-level appropriate” and “not suited for student needs,” according to the chair. “This title was clearly intended for an adult audience.”
Ziegler said she supports parents allowing their children, whether the district removes them from schools or not.
“There are books that are not banned by the federal government, that are available on Amazon, at a public library, at Barnes & Noble that would not be appropriate here and I don’t want to infringe upon any parents’ right to read that to their child,” she said. “But there are going to be guardrails that we, as a board, are responsible to do when it comes to the appropriate material.”
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