“We just found out recently that children’s books ‘No, David!’ and ‘Wacky Wednesday’ were removed and those weren’t even on the chopping block in the past couple of years, so these completely innocuous books have been removed that are beloved by children,” said Lindsey Patrick-Wright, Wilson County parent and former librarian.
WILSON COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — Thanks to a new state law, more than 400 books have been pulled from Wilson County school libraries.
That includes a children’s book by Dr. Seuss called Wacky Wednesday.
“It’s heartbreaking that our school district had to make this choice to remove so many books,” said Erin Moore, Wilson County parent.
For years, book bans have been a heated discussion during Wilson County school board meetings.
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“Why are these books that contain this kind of overt adult sexual content within the walls of a children’s library?” School Board member Greg Hohman asked during a school board meeting a few years ago.
In the past, when books were challenged in Wilson County, they went before a book review committee. The committee would then recommend if a book should go on the “mature reading list” which allowed parents to make the decision for their child.
“And so our community stood up and said we don’t want book banning then our state representative, Susan Lynn, who represents Wilson County proposed this bill in the state legislature and turned it into law,” said Lindsey Patrick-Wright, Wilson County parent and former librarian.
Republican State Representative Susan Lynn proposed a stricter law that’s led to librarians reviewing all their books and removing any with sexual content, excess violence, and some forms of abuse.
“The goal of this law is to keep sexually explicit books out of the hands of minors,” Lynn told News 2 in August.
Some critics of the law have said it’s so vague, the Bible could be banned in schools.
Wilson County’s Director of Schools, Jeff Luttrell, warned about the potential impact of the law after it took effect in July.
“And what I don’t want is for our library and administrators this tremendous amount of pressure on them,” said Luttrell.
Ahead of Thursday’s board meeting, Luttrell released a list of over 400 books removed from elementary, middle, and high school shelves.
Patrick-Wright fears this is just the beginning, and more books will be removed in the future.
“We just found out recently that children’s books No, David! and Wacky Wednesday were removed and those weren’t even on the chopping block in the past couple of years, so these completely innocuous books have been removed that are beloved by children,” Patrick-Wright said.
“There is a good portion of us in our community that are feeling completely demoralized. There are a lot of families that don’t feel safe don’t feel heard and don’t feel represented,” Moore said.