Picture a 14-year-old in Somerset County walking into her school library this fall, looking for a book that feels like it was written for someone like her — a kid figuring out who she is. Under a policy her school board is seeking to enact, that book won’t be on the shelf, no matter what its title or pedigree as a coming-of-age classic.
Not this year. Not even when she’s a 17-year-old senior, weeks from graduation.
That’s because the Somerset School Board, on Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore, is pursuing a policy that, as drafted, would move all “young adult” books – that is, books classified by publishers and librarians as written for 12- to 18-year-olds – onto restricted, “adults only” shelves. The board somehow believes this entire genre of books read by children growing up across America is too adult, too mature, too controversial for Somerset students. It would forbid all but a few Somerset students over 18 from browsing (or, perish-the-thought, reading) books on the newly restricted shelves.
And to ensure that, the policy would punish any librarian who allowed under-18 students to see the forbidden books.
