A librarian in Kansas City is finding out firsthand that some parents are just born to be overactive and over-reactive busybodies. Amy Crump is the new director of the Marshall Public Library, and during the course of expanding their stock of graphic novels, she added a few titles that were created for an adult audience. Parents caught wind of this and are now pitching hissy fits because everyone knows that a child accidentally seeing a drawing of naked people will bring about the downfall of the world.

Among Crump’s new acquisitions are Blankets by Craig Thompson and Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel, two semi-autobiographical accounts of the respective authors’ turbulent childhoods that include ruminations on a strict religious upbringing and homosexuality.

Those two novels touched off what Crump said was the first challenge of library materials in the library’s 16-year history. Parents complained that the books, which include pictures of a naked couple, could be read by children.

“My concern does not lie with the content of the novels, rather my concern is with the illustrations and their availability to children and the community,” said Marshall resident Louise Mills during a recent public hearing reported in The Marshall Democrat-News. “Does this community want our public library to continue to use tax dollars to purchase pornography?”

The library board has since removed the two books from circulation while it develops a policy governing how it collects materials in the future, a policy that would determine the novels’ eventual fates.

The most disturbing thing about the entire article is this little bit of information, however:

Even Maus and its sequel, Maus II, were challenged last year in Oregon as anti-ethnic and unsuitable for younger readers.

“Maus” is anti-ethnic and unsuitable for younger readers? Maus should be required reading for younger readers!

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