Who's Afraid of 'Where the Crawdads Sing'

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by Rod Williams, Dec. 13, 2024- On Monday of this week the Williamson County school board met in a special session to vote on five books in the library system to determine whether the five books were “appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students who may access to books in WCS libraries." Also, the Board was to determine if each book was “consistent with the educational mission of WCS.” The Board was then to vote to remove the book or restrict access. 

The five book in question, and the decisions on them, were:

• “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer, which was removed from schools
• “Field Guide to the American Teenager” by Ben Philippe, which was restricted to 11th- and 12th-grade students only
• “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson, which was restricted to high school students only
• “Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, which was removed from schools
• “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Della Owens, which was removed from schools

The removal is made possible by the Age Appropriate Act which makes it mandatory for “school libraries and classrooms to maintain a list of materials in the library collection, to have a policy to screen reading materials for ‘age appropriateness’ and to remove materials that do not meet the criteria established.

Moms for Liberty organized the effort to remove books

I am only familiar with one of the five books in question and that is Where the Crawdads Sing. I read the book a couple years ago or so. Actually, I was not impressed. If was a pleasurable enough leisure time read, but I did not think it was a great piece of literature. I found it kind of contrived and forced. But, what do I know? The book has sold over 18 million copies making it one of the best-selling books of all time. It spent over 150 weeks on The New York Times bestsellers list. While I didn't love the book, I certainly do not remember it as a dirty or erotic or a sexually arousing book. Yes, it delt with real life circumstances but it was not lascivious. 

No child is going to seek the book out for sexual arousal. They are not going to pass it around and giggle about it.  If I had a child that read this book, I would be glad they loved reading. If they have the reading level to read the book, they have the maturity level to read it.  If you have a child who does not live under a rock or under lock and key or who is not prohibiting from associating with other kids, they are going to be exposed to mush worse on TV, or rap lyrics, or TikTok, or from their peers. This is just not that bad. 

By removing the book from school libraries, it prohibits every child in the county school system from having access to the book. Rather than banning books for everyone, maybe schools should maintain of list of children that are prohibited from accessing certain books and parents be allowed to add their child's name to the list.

I am not sure that inappropriate books in school libraries was ever a serious problem. This looks more like a solution in search of a problem. There might have been a librarian somewhere who did not use proper judgement in which books they selected for the library. However, it seems there should be another way of dealing with this than allowing the most vocal and puritanical of parents to pressure school boards to remove books. 

Moms for Liberty turned out parents to advocate for removal of the books in question. Maybe the solution to this problem is for a Moms for Literacy group to form to show up and speak up for books like Where the Crawdads Sing to counter the Mons for Liberty which wants to remove the book. Moms for Liberty organizes to defeat school board members who are not responsive to their demands. There needs to be pushback. 

This was distributed by Moms for Liberty highlighting the bad parts. This is all they could find in the first 133 pages.  To see more, follow this link.

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