Most of the time, my biggest joy about leaving work for grad school is leaving work. But sometimes, things like this make me anxious to get my degree going so I can go out and work again! And I have a hunch: I'm going to be the best librarian ever.
This book, Weetzie Bat, is something I've written about before, and it was one of my very favorites around the time I was in 8th-9th grade. There are a few books written after this one, about the same characters, and one of those is Baby Be-Bop. And right now, a member of the "Christian Civil Liberties Union" (pffffft) is suing a public library in Wisconsin for displaying Baby Be-Bop and "$120,000 in compensatory damages ($30,000 per plaintiff) for being exposed to the book in a library display, and the resignation of West Bend Mayor Kristine Deiss for 'allow[ing] this book to be viewed by the public.'"
Baby Be-Bop is just about as innocuous as it sounds. I've read everything Francesca Lia Block wrote about the Weetzie Bat characters, and it's right in line with the rest of the books. It focuses on Dirk, Weetzie's best friend, and his relationship with his grandmother. Dirk knows he's gay and he thinks about what that means and he falls in love, and that's pretty much it. It's a good book and I'd gladly let my kids read it. Or the kids of the community! Or anyone! I would never "seek the right to publicly burn" it, that's for sure!
And honestly, nobody has ever suffered $30,000 worth of emotional damage by looking at (not even reading!) a book in a display. Not to mention all the crappy implications of deciding your civil liberties supersede everyone else's, or of appointing yourself moral judge of a community. And are they serious about this asking-the-mayor-to-resign crap? Not on my watch, they wouldn't be! I can't wait to get out there and start defending our freedom, information-wise, right in line with the legit ACLU.
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