Parents and community members need to step up and start talking about the inappropriate sexually explicit books in schools. Many school libraries have books on their shelves with adult themes that are not age appropriate for minors. Some books have graphic sexual scenes described in full detail and sexually explicit images of people engaging in sex acts. Some books contain depict unhealthy sexual experiences including rape, pedophilia and incest. There are also books that instruct children how to perform different sex acts and encourage them to go online and find people to “hook up” with.
One has to ask themselves how having these books in a school helps students achieve academic success. It is not necessary or acceptable to have pornographic materials in schools. It is time to find out what is going on in your local school district regarding books and work towards getting sexually explicit materials out of the hands of children in your schools and local community.
How to Get Started:
The first thing to do is to find out what books are in your school library. A great majority of schools use the Follett system for their libraries. If your school district participates, you can go to the Follett website and search for different book titles. Access the website here. Search for your state and school. Once there, enter in the title of a book you would like to search for and see if it appears in the school library. You may want to check every school in your district (you need to search each school separately).
What Books Should I Search For?
fere is our list of the Worst of the Worst books! Search to see how many are in your school library! You can also download and print this list HERE. You can find out more about each book and its contents by clicking on the title/author.
Jack of Hearts and Other Parts by L.C. Rosen
What Girls Are Made of by Elana Arnold
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson
Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson
Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
The Nerdy and the Dirty by B.T. Gottfred
Me, Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
Exit Here by Jason Myers
Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh
The Infinite Moments of us by Lauren Myracle
Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Organize Your Findings:
We recommend putting together an organized binder of all of the information you need to have discussions regarding sexually explicit books in your schools. This makes it easy to be prepared for any meeting or opportunity to engage with a decision maker about what you have found and what the laws are. We are providing many resources for you to start your binder and understand the laws. You can easily download all documents we have collected, print them and add them to your binder. We recommend printing the following documents listed below.
Talking Points:
We want to make this easy and simple for you to advocate against inappropriate sexually explicit books in your school libraries. We have provided talking points to make any meeting you have with a school board, school administrator or police official more effective. You can download our talking points below.