> Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.

At 9 I had no idea how to go into a massive thing like a library and make a selection for myself. "Word of mouth" made a lot of choices for me when I was young.

Weird. At 9 I randomly picked whatever looked interesting. If I liked it, I proceeded to read every single other thing by that author.

There was no "word of mouth" because I was the only kid in my class who read for pleasure.

When I was that age my teacher had a thing where reading something like 3 books got you out of a lot of homework and your parent had to sign a paper listing what you read and you turned it in.

As a kid who already hated school, and used reading as an escape from a pretty shit childhood, I was clocking in 5 books a week.

The teacher first accused my parents of lying that I read that many books, because it quickly got to double digits, but I was able to summarize all of them off the top of my head, so instead I was just forbidden from doing it altogether.

Not sure what the lesson is there, lol.

> The teacher first accused my parents of lying that I read that many books, because it quickly got to double digits, but I was able to summarize all of them off the top of my head, so instead I was just forbidden from doing it altogether.

> Not sure what the lesson is there, lol.

Lessons learned:

a) Incentives matter (economy 101)

b) If a market offers possibilities for arbitrage, market participants will attempt to make use of them.

c) By market laws, arbitrage opportunities will close very fast, so in the long term, markets can be assumed to be arbitrage-free.

d) Goodhart's law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

e) Authorities (or those in power) will attempt to cheat you. Don't trust them.

Oh I mean what was the intended lesson from the teacher. Read less?

I guess the lesson is "don't over deliver" :)

In high school we had to make a list of 12 books we read in the year. I was reading a few a week. My list contained 12 books.

(Side note, we lived some distance from the library in elementary school, but we got through the books -fast- so the librarians gave us extra library cards to reduce visits to like once a week. I also got adult-cards pretty young (like 10) because I'd read all the kids books and was already reading older fare. This was in the days before YA was a genre :)

Of course you had a poor teacher because they obviously desired to teach you something, but forgot to tell you what the lesson was. Other than they were a bad teacher, but i guess you may already have known that.

> Oh I mean what was the intended lesson from the teacher. Read less?

Don't try to cheat the system. Follow the spirit of rules obediently instead of attempting to use the wording of the rules to your advantage.

was there any benefit to reading more than 3 books in a given time period? if not i would have only reported 3 books. it's none of their business what i do beyond that.

the lesson is that overachievers are often not welcome.

Same - except many of my friends were reading for fun. Oh this has a skeleton on the cover? Guess I’ll read everything this guy/gal ever wrote.

All the libraries I’ve been to recently are very well set up for discoverability. Especially the kids section. There are hundreds of books on display with some indication of what it’s like and themed sections and all kinds of stuff

Everyone seems to say children should go to libraries more.

At 9, I didn’t need to go to a library—we just had bunch of books at home. Books are cheap, especially second hand. Some of our books were in fact from a library (my mom went, but I never did), so those would rotate.

I suppose the fact that books were physical and I did not have something like TikTok on my phone when I was 9 helped me read whatever was lying around.

As adult I used Kindle for a while but got back to sourcing physical books, even though I have no permanent place and books are difficult to travel with.

> At 9, I didn’t need to go to a library—we just had bunch of books at home. Books are cheap, especially second hand. Some of our books were in fact from a library (my mom went, but I never did), so those would rotate.

You know what isn't cheap in the 2020s? Space.

My grandparents had a full-ass room just for books. I can't even fit my modest blu-ray collection in my apartment, they sit in storage along with my DVDs and physical books.

I've got a Kindle and Calibre with hundreds of books and they don't take any space.

Your grandparents’ house must be huge. We never had a room just for books, not me, not my parents, not their parents. A family of 4 in 2 bedrooms, one living room. Shelves are not expensive and you’d be surprised, they can fit quite a lot of books. Over time some books were lent or given to libraries, others added.

Not huge, they just had a full-ass house custom built from scratch at my age.

I'm still trying to get my first proper apartment instead of renting =) And know I make more in a year than both of them combined in 2-3 years.

I know someone who owns some land to build a house. I envy that person, who is definitely in a more secure position than myself.

When I was a kid we lived in a small apartment. We still managed to have room for books though. A single bookshelf or two takes up only about 10 square feet of floor space.

I've become an avid reader of web novels when I found out about them as a teenager sometime before 2010. Idk, for me it completely removed the urge to get physical books. I've got a Kindle too at some point, but I felt the form factor was terrible for reading fiction. There is a reason why newspapers always put their publications into columns, because it makes for an extremely fast reading experience - which is great for fiction.

Another factor is that web fictions are targeted at people that just want to read for a short moment, so you're basically only gonna read for 5-10 minutes before the chapter is over and you're done until the next publication.

IMHO the biggest danger to the medium (written fiction) are LLMs. Since they've become well known, the amount of content has skyrocketed and most of it is without any point. No coherent story that develops with characters growing over the months/years you're following them.

I never got into reading web-native writing, though sometimes I wish I did. I also don’t piecemeal publishing, even though I know many classics were published that way initially. On the contrary, I like to read for as long as I want, finishing a book is always frustrating.

Agreed, LLMs are an issue and will probably reduce the amount of written content published in the open (or at all).

Going to the library means you pick what you want to read from a much wider variety of available books, not just the ones the adults in your life deemed worthy of purchase.

I would almost certainly be on a diet of some attractive but unchallenging fast food like teenage detective novels if I had that choice as a kid. Would my life actually have turned out better if I didn’t read the likes of Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Hesse, Garcia Marquez back then? Perhaps, but at the time I was enthralled and didn’t mind being able to choose among the books adults in my life had around (likely knowing I would end up reading some of them).

"[W]ord of mouth" is probably mostly for girls. I never once had a boy tell me growing up that I needed to read a particular book.

    > I was the only kid in my class who read for pleasure.

Nice humblebrag. Also, I find this hard to believe.

> Nice humblebrag. Also, I find this hard to believe.

If they did, they didn't tell me about it. That might tell you how much the other kids talked to me. Not much of a brag now is it? :-D

However, I have good reason to believe it. I went to the public library every weekend when I was in elementary school. I never, ever ran into anyone from my class there in all those years. If the other kids in my class at age 9 read for pleasure, they weren't anywhere close to me in volume.

It's not a brag, and not a real achievement. The tallest kid in a class at age 14 might only be of average height in a crowd 10 years later. This is the same thing.

Many kids never visit the library except during school visits. They get books as gifts and read them at home.

> "[W]ord of mouth" is probably mostly for girls. I never once had a boy tell me growing up that I needed to read a particular book

Crazy gender stereotype based on just anecdotes (nothing wrong with saying it tho, its always awesome to hear about different experiences)

Most of the books that changed my life, got me into tech, programming, got me into business, entrepreneurship, hustle, etc.

All the books, podcasts, etc were either shared directly to me by my male friends (im male too) who insisted i read those books for my betterment cuz those books were acc. to them : “Awesome” , or books that i discovered while exchange discussions about what books are we reading right now, exchanging reading lists, etc.

There are tons of girls out there who hate reading books, (my mom included, she always has hated books, outside of school homework and exams),

I do not like reading fiction books much, nor do my peers, we’ve exchanged book suggestions since childhood, now even more with more and more internet friends.

Ive had great books on gardening, or agriculture, or history, etc recommended to me either inside books by authors, or by random telegram groups consisting mostly of nerd men.

99% of the books recommended to me were by men, and im a man.

So i dont think its a girl only thing, plenty of people exchanging book, just go to any major reddit forum on reading and booksuggestions (like r/suggestmeabook) and you’ll find tons of men who are more than happy to give you suggestions, if you cannot find classmates or neighbours to share with

I don't really think it's a gender thing, my friends who were boys and I talked about books pretty frequently. They were pretty much the same as videogames, comic books, movies and shows to us so we'd talk about them in the same way.

I specifically remember that when the first Harry Potter (I was a child cut me some slack) came out I bounced off it because I didn't like it, and then one of my friends at school couldn't stop talking about it and got me interested enough to pick it back up.

And don't even get me STARTED on the LotR books. Or Star Trek novelizations (which I still consider books).

About once a month my parents would take me to a book shop and I would (almost) invariably grab a new Star Wars Extended Universe novel

In the NYC public libraries there are kids sections where you just walk around and look at books. If something seems interesting then pick it up and read it. I preferred things with technical pictures so the kids section was quite boring.

That’s ok, part of the joy of going to a library is finding out about new things you’ve never even heard of. And we also already have human recommendation systems, they’re called librarians!

I ended up in the government section. Reading reports about arms and equipment transfers from the US Government to the Middle East made in the 1980s. It was definitely fascinating, especially because the Middle East was in the news at that time, but I really was only there because I had _no idea_ what to actually do.

I'm not saying the library doesn't have exceptional value, or that 9 year olds shouldn't be in it, but maybe for younger patrons a "concierge" type service or "first timer group experience" being available would help a lot.

Typically that concierge service would be the conversation you have with the librarian as you sign up for a library card. What kind of books do you like, are you interested in Middle East arms transfers, oh have you heard of this one, etc. If you’re 9 years old perhaps that would also involve guiding you to the children’s section, although it seems you’ve turned out alright regardless.

I still don’t, honestly. I’ve never gone to the library when I wasn’t going to get some specific title. I Google stuff first.

I assume they were talking about the school library, rather than a big library downtown somewhere. Certainly that is where I first fell in love with books. Sometimes all it takes to make someone a lifelong reader is a good librarian with a shelf full of curated picks, eye-catching covers facing out.

As the article notes, school libraries are getting defunded and politicized, which is extremely sad to me, and disproportionately worrying for the future.

There will always be people unable to figure out basic skills but that's not a reason to handicap the entire system.

At 9 (and before) i had bookit; where if you chose one of many of the sponsored books at the school (or public) library you got a personal pan pizza coupon.

An interpretation is book cos have cut physical benefit advertising for cents on the dollar internet advertisements.

Well my school did trips to the local library so that everyone could acquire their paper card for borrowing books. The process of borrowing and the different sections in the library were explained by the librarian and at least in my mind that helped a great deal to seek out books on my own.

> This part of the article is very off-putting to me. You don’t need TikTok to find good books for kids. Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.

> The author mentions later on that libraries are being defunded, and this is likely to be the root cause. Rather than spending so many words on speculation it would’ve been nice to see some hard numbers on the subject.

You also need "evangelism" from people in a position to influence. That's unlikely to be librarians; and parents/teachers are also not the best-positioned for that.

Overall the costs of social media likely still outweigh the harms here, but it seems to me like they've identified a legimitate "good" usage in encouraging reading in certain niches.

How to replicate that without social media? Gotta make a bunch of local kid "influencers."

Watching someone do a thing and doing the thing are different. One of the pitfalls of a lot of recommendation systems is that they don’t know or care about the difference. Watching a video about a book is fine, but then you need to go out and read.

It’s a little like reading an article before commenting. Most people don’t. You will get a lot more out of the conversation if you do though.

Or sponsor book fairs and bookit programs ... which have higher costs than digital ads.

I think you dramatically underestimate the influence that TikTok has on young people. If you want something to be popular amongst young people, making it popular on TikTok is a huge way to do so.

Libraries already have thousands, if not millions, of books on hand. I don't think it's a funding issue.

There’s a lot more cost involved in running a library than buying books. Staff and building upkeep are big expenses. That said, you want to have some newer books coming in, too, if you want to keep kids interested.

> This part of the article is very off-putting to me. You don’t need TikTok to find good books for kids. Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.

They need a library stocked with "books that kids will enjoy," recently published doesn't have anything to do with it. It's not like filling the school library up with stuff only published in the last 3 years is what we need to get kids reading.

> The author mentions later on that libraries are being defunded, and this is likely to be the root cause. Rather than spending so many words on speculation it would’ve been nice to see some hard numbers on the subject.

I doubt that's the root cause. Frankly, all the other things seem more significant: making reading education more test-focused and less fun, screens (in a zillion different ways, subtle and obvious), the pandemic breaking peer-influenced reading, etc. They're all probably working together dis-synergisticly.

I also wonder if there's other missing social components. I remember in elementary school feeling that reading "chapter books" was important step to being more mature. Do kids still feel that way? Of course I also often read pulpy junk that was fun or interesting, not serious.

The OP said:

> Connor was more blunt: “Maybe you think a book about a school shooting is really important,” she said, “but kids want to read a fun book. That’s what kids want today—they want to have fun.”

I think that's always been true. IIRC, I always disliked the "important" books I was forced to read for school (e.g. the ones that tended to win important awards from adults and get articles written about them in the New York Times to this day).

Recent can be a generous time period, but it's not unimportant. When I was very young, I was able to enjoy the Hardy Boys and the Chronicles of Narnia, but even in the 90s, just forty years after the latter was written, they both felt very, very old. When I started finding more current writing, like Redwall or Animorphs, I never looked back.

> It's not like filling the school library up with stuff only published in the last 3 years is what we need to get kids reading.

I’ve heard newer English literature evangelized quite a lot since older English literature gets more and more Eurocentric the further back you go. Usually on political grounds, but also with the claim that newer literature is better and more relevant to especially diverse children’s lives.

> They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy.

Sure. The next step is helping them making a decision on which book to read and provide a social environment for doing that. Libraries do not really do that and haven't done that even in the early 90s.

I am sorry your experience at libraries was so unfulfilling. To me, libraries opened up a world of knowledge. When I was a kid my mom would take my brother and I to the library and just let us loose. As a kid I could spend what felt like days looking at cool cutaway diagrams of castles or reading about how black holes worked. And at the end I took home 5 or 10 of the most interesting books. And it was all free!

It's interesting that all problems in America are due to "funding". It's actually quite curious because funding was a problem for electric vehicles, funding was a problem for space, funding was a problem for literally everything. But then sometimes people come up and succeed at things that others have described as a funding problem for ages.

I think I can conclude reasonably from this is that the lowest efficiency lever one can pull is funding. Schools with the highest funding have the worst performance. That's because the people there only know one answer to every problem: "funding".

> Schools with the highest funding have the worst performance.

It could also be because the schools with the most special / high needs children need the most funding.

Schools in poor neighborhoods need more help just to achieve median results. They need to contend with issues like teen pregnancies, drug use, violence, and kids who don't even have food at home.

Compare those challenges to rich suburban kids and of course the schools in poor areas need more funding.

> Schools with the highest funding have the worst performance.

Spills with the most paper towels are the messiest. Why does everyone think they need paper towels to clean up spills!?

Hospitals have higher mortality rates than grocery stores. If I have a heart attack you’ll find me in the deli.

The billionaires who look for every tax loophole possible certainly know the value of “funding”. They are currently funding their yachts to take them to their superyachts. Private equity controlled health care companies are extracting billions of dollars in profits (read: overcharging people who want to live) leading to “efficiencies” like understaffing and under training which cause thousands of excess deaths every year.

Elon Musk received plenty of government funding for his companies as well. And guess what? BYD sells more cars than Tesla now (a few years ago Elon said he wasn’t worried about them and now they’re suddenly a problem) because of what? Government funding. Governments have also funded the majority of fundamental research which made present day technologies possible. Even today NIST, DARPA, NHS, NSF etc continue to fund science and technology research.

This whole thread - and that whole chunk of TFA - is totally alien to me.

When I was 9, our school had a small library with a librarian (or at least an on-duty teacher), and if you wanted to read something you could always go and ask her what she thought you'd enjoy - and that was on the off chance you couldn't find something that looked appealing.

There are also public libraries where you could do the same thing with your parents in tow.

When did that stop?

I think most of our problems are due to digital marketing....

it's not good for stuff.....something's....but it's not a panacea.... Meta and Google and Tiktok all claim otherwise.....but the cultural effects show.

advertising in the modern age is not good .....

it's not sticky.....

it's vapid and forgotten faster than the fly you accidentally swallowed at some point in your life...

Not even recently published. There a lot of great children's classics.

My local library has an "ask the librarian" program.

Tell them what you like to read and they'll email you a list of 10 books to try next.

Long before TikTok and YouTube and even Google there was the Dewey Decimal System. We use it to categorize books into a hierarchical tree structure. So I think what most people do is to find a category they’re interested in and look inside that category for either subcategories or books they find interesting.

The Dewey Decimal Classification is terrible. It's an incredibly dated system with serious flaws like an pervasive European/Christian bias - for instance, notice that class 200 ("Religion") is almost entirely devoted to Christian topics, with a single subclass 290 for all "other religions" - and a lack of effective classifications for modern technical topics.

It's also basically useless at classifying works of fiction, to the extent that most libraries don't even bother using it for that purpose. Standard practice is to group all fiction into a few broad categories (like "mystery" or "fantasy", as well as a catch-all for general fiction) and shelve them alphabetically by author. Needless to say, this isn't conducive to browsing.

i was going to say that a detailed classification of fiction would not really help finding interesting stuff. apart from the broad categories as you mention, interesting books are more defined by writing style, characters, etc.

i am struggling with this as i keep looking for new books to read. being in a book club helps a lot.

The defunding thing sounds like a bit of obligatory politics.

"In some states, teachers can’t even keep a classroom library because they have to protect themselves from book bans"

Yeah this sounds false.

What sounds false about it?

A (very straightforward) search surfaced this article https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmq54/florida-teachers-are-...

That does not say teachers can't keep a library. At most it says that the titles in said library need to be reviewed/approved by the school.

The emphasis on "taking away libraries" appears to be partly politically motivated.

This isn't about censorship per se since we have a baseline expectation of censorship. We already don't allow teachers to stock racist material or porn in classrooms. This new thing seems to that there are LGBT books which veer close to the edge with stuff like explicit sex scenes.

It mentions other "proposed" laws, some of which seemingly setting a lower bar. But "proposed" laws aren't banning libraries now.

In any case, how can this possibly be an important and relevant issue today contributing to an already-observed decline in reading in 9-year olds nationally?

> That does not say teachers can't keep a library. At most it says that the titles in said library need to be reviewed/approved by the school.

It says the teachers have to remove or cover up their classroom libraries until their books can be approved by the school. I don't know how you can honestly argue that that doesn't constitute removal, even if it might be temporary.

> In any case, how can this possibly be an important and relevant issue today contributing to an already-observed decline in reading in 9-year olds nationally?

I don't know enough about the subject to comment, which is why I didn't say anything about such a relationship. I only responded to you because you were saying someone else was wrong and I didn't think you were right

The fact that these laws are applied to all books with LGBT content regardless of what they contain - while non-LGBT books with sexual content remain unbanned and available to minors - is what makes it censorship[0].

[0]https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-florida-dont-say-gay-books-...

Sure but that was backed off. The law does not, in fact, apply to all books with LGBT content regardless of what they contain. There was a March 2024 legal settlement clarifying many cases that are explicitly not prohibited.

Also, do you think these laws have been important regarding the "decline by 9" of 9-year olds reading for enjoyment?

One possible issue on the contrary side is promotion of kids' books involving racial diversity themes. Often such moralizing books are not very interesting for pure entertainment value. They are there to meet a market trend, some may be better than others but in general have not stood the test of time.

It’s a pretty standard pattern in right wing politics. Defund a thing, it becomes less efficient, politicians claim the thing they broke is better handled by the private sector, defunding continues. We have seen this with pretty much every public good since the Reagan/Thatcher era. The nice things we had in the West have been gutted and sold off for parts.

It should tell you something that these “concerned parents” never pressured Amazon to stop selling the books they complain about. It was never about the books.

> Yeah this sounds false.

I have quite a few teacher friends in Georgia and NYC, and I can tell you that this is the case for them. Organizations that represent teachers have said so themselves. Hard evidence is best though. Do you have numbers to dismiss their claims?

What is the case, they literally are not allowed to have (any) books in the classroom? Can you be specific as to the mechanism here? Do you yourself have any link to any evidence? You (the article) are making the claim.

I think the argument is quite subtle.

There is a lot of book banning occurring and the rate seems to be increasing fast (see links below).

There are penalties in some jurisdictions and zero teachers want to face the kind of shit that has gone on with parents and politicians, churches and local body meetings.

So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, just remove the lot. Teachers do not have time for this crap, and why risk their jobs?

It’s chilling and it’s hard to see how this isn’t the aim. ‘Who ever needed more than a bible?’

https://pen.org/report/narrating-the-crisis/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/books/book-bans-public-sc...

> So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, just remove the lot.

That doesn't pass the smell test. The only way I can see that being even remotely true is if the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically.

Even in the most hostile environment, I doubt you'd run afoul of anyone with a well-stocked library of widely beloved classic children's books.

> The only way I can see that being even remotely true is if the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically.

Doesn’t this swing both ways? Surely banning books is seen as a fairly extreme and intended to impose your views on someone else. What other interpretation is there?

> Doesn’t this swing both ways? Surely banning books is seen as a fairly extreme and intended to impose your views on someone else. What other interpretation is there?

No. I was only responding to the false hyperbole that teachers can't keep books in their classrooms anymore.

Also, the whole controversy around "banning books" is stupid and full of dumb propaganda. That extends to the term "book ban" itself, which is a bit of manipulative, misleading spin that rivals "death tax." If anyone was really against "book bans," they should demonstrate their commitment by fighting for a Hustler subscription and some "gender critical" books for every classroom. It's really a fight about who gets to do the banning.

"widely beloved" by whom? "classic" in what sense?

I'd think Tolkein's "The Hobbit" would fit this description? Or CS Lewis Narnia series, one-offs like "The Secret Garden", Also Edith Nesbit, fantastic children's author, "The Railway children" probably her most famous. century old at least.

This is why I ask beloved by whom and classic by what standard.

Look, Narnia has witchcraft in it and depicts Christ as a lion. It's probably blasphemous (though, yes, I get that it is intended as a regular Christian allegory and is not supposed to be blasphemous). It is not universally loved in the evangelical community and is a possible target for a book ban. It's also got racially insensitive stereotypes depicted and that's a target for complaints from a different direction.

The Hobbit is indeed a popular book, that has repeatedly been the subject of book bans, again for the magic/wizardry/witchcraft thing.

The point is, if your job is to be an elementary school teacher and people try to get you fired for having a book they find objectionable, it's a lot keep on top of. The books people object to vary wildly.

Additionally, when people make these classic book lists, they suffer from what I think of as "classic books that adults believe children ought to like" syndrome. Sometimes these books overlap with what kids actually like, sometimes not.

Interesting reply :) Some thoughts: (1) "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" contains in certain ways a re-telling of the Gospels in a way that speaks to children. But its a great story in itself, one can take or leave it's resemblance to the bible, its also enjoyed by atheists. I'd debate seeing it as blasphemy. Why would God object to the bible story being respun by an author who's themselves a Christian with such decent motives for writing? (2) Racial insensitive stereotypes- sure that's a problem in older books, some bad examples too in the highly entertaining "Just William" series, but these can be an opportunity to talk to children about what's appropriate to say , and how thinking has moved on in good ways. I'd support reprints of such books having extra text added to point out that some content would nowadays be considered racist or whatever (3) Hobbit being banned for witchcraft - to be honest, whoever is banning this is nuts IMHO. Should "Hansel and Gretel" be banned too then? You're probably gonna tell me it has been. Kids have enjoyed stories about witches for centuries. Who has the right to tell them that's not allowed? They know its fantasy. (4) I take your point about it being a PITA to look after a library as a school teacher, especially in the current climate particularly in USA. Maybe there needs to be a ban on bans? ;) Apart from restrictions due to age appropriateness, who is anyone to tell someone else what they're allowed to read? (5) "classic books adults think children ought to like" -its a fair point- I can imagine some adults might do that, sure, not all kids like classics. With our kids we just try to guarantee them access to the good stuff new and old, partly just take them to the library and see what they find. If one ever pushes a kid to read, or read a certain thing, they'll rightly push back. Not for adults to force them, just to provide them with quality stuff. I think the original article though was complaining of the market dropping out for content for 9-yr-olds, but really you'd want to read a mix of classics and modern though, right? Same as a symphony orchestra wouldn't play ONLY Beethoven or ONLY 21st century composers?

The Hobbit is banned by multiple school districts. It actually pissed off a lot of teachers too. It is books like that being banned that make teachers not want to have a library at all. It is really easy to have a banned book, and teachers do not have the time to source each book in their already existing libraries.

But I guess in their words:

> the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically

Wow! I'd no idea the Hobbit was banned anywhere. Madness. Its just a work of art. Hardly even controversial. Kids should be able to make their on judgement about it. People need to be allowed to think critically. I could possibly see why one might disallow, say, Mein Kampf in a school library but even then you could possibly have, for historical purposes, a copy annotated with a lot of warnings and reminders of who the author was and what he did.

Where is The Hobbit banned? A quick Google shows some Christian schools have (though the last mention is 2011), but certainly no US public schools.

Sure, but then you’re just reinforcing the attitude that reading is just for stodgy old people rather than a way to understand the world as it is today.

You need a bit of both old and new surely? I'd argue, that great literature, whether for kids or adults, is timeless. Our daughter loved learning Greek legends for example in school. The challenge I think with modern stuff can be, finding the good stuff amongst the crp. Whereas classic stuff has stood the test of time, the crp has mostly fallen by the wayside.

> It also avoids discussing which age is appropriate for these topics.

A professional with training and some sort of certification could decide this, based on the child’s age and development level. A teacher for example.

> So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later,

This sounds like nonsense.

Sure, they may have to do this for books that are close to crossing the line, or they could simply leave out any controversial book.

Does that mean that the school library won't have some books? Well, yes, but they already don't stock "every book ever written".

My school, back in the 80s, did not keep Nabakov's Lolita. The public library had it, though.

School's aren't there to "teach the controversy". I said it back when the controversy not being taught was Intelligent Design, I stand by it in 202x when the controversy not being taught is LGBT.

Teachers are leaving the profession en masse because they feel unsafe, unsupported, underpaid, and harassed by national organizations.

Teacher unions list book bans as one of the primary reasons for leaving. They have data and testimony backing that up. We see legislation and organizations all over America.

Here is a quick article describing the number of books being banned and the effects it has on teachers [1]. It list numbers. There are numerous articles all over the internet from well respected organizations like the NYT saying the same stuff.

The numbers are already presented by them. We see the teachers leaving. We know education is suffering from systematic national pressures from both political sides. Feel free to look it up. hell on first principles, book banning has a direct effect on libraries teachers can have when they include such classics. Again, what numbers do you have? Or just first principles logic to dismiss them at all?

[1] : https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/educators-fi...

From first principles, it is normal to ban material. The ages and exact policies are debatable but these articles are entirely one-sided.

It appears that most of the handwringing is about politically disagreeing with the bans, not hardships of obeying bans. There are always bans. But they want this material (sexuality, gender, "race theory") available even to pretty young children because of their societal goals/agenda. Others do not want that. Fight.

This recent WSJ article mentions primarily reasons of salary and student behavior, as any layman would guess from first principles. It did mention "political battles over issues such as how race and gender are discussed". Well, this is not going away -- the battle is fought from multiple directions. Another direction is the industry profits from institutions being morally obligated to buy a lot of new diversity-related books.

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/teachers-leaving-quitt...

There seems to be a lot of "first principles" thinking in this debate which leaves out essential factors. It ignores that children have brains of their own with likes and dislikes who will readily decide for themselves how much they like a book. It gives no benefit of the doubt or generosity to school staff. And it ignores the fact that good libraries are historically a mix of lots of different content that is clearly not all good.

> From first principles, it is normal to ban material.

Sure.

> It appears that most of the handwringing is about politically disagreeing with the bans, not hardships of obeying bans

That is not true. The ban list is overly broad. The hobbit is banned in some locations. Harry potter and asoiaf... Maybe high schoolers and middle schoolers shouldn't be reading that stuff. Multiple teachers in multiple districts have been disciplined over books they did not expect. It is far more sustainable for teachers to avoid this issue.

> But they want this material (sexuality, gender, "race theory") available even to pretty young children because of their societal goals/agenda

I am not going to judge this statement's veracity. Let's take it as true. As I mentioned before, the issue would then be that they are also banning other books that have nothing to do with this, and that still makes the jobs of teachers difficult. It is not feasible to have this much overhead on book bans because of political battles and also expect teachers to manage this overhead.

Thanks for sharing your first principles argument. If you have the time, please share some numbers.