King & King Goes Back on Shelf in Lower Macungie, PA
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Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 12/4/2007 2:05:00 PM
The children's gay-themed picture book King & King will not be withdrawn from the Lower Macungie (PA) library despite a local couple’s objections. After local township supervisors considered Jeff and Eileen Issa's request to remove the book from the public library, the supervisors decided to let the library’s directors determine the fate of the book.
On November 29, the library directors did just that, considering the request for withdrawal for the second time in three months, and for the second time, rejecting it.
Earlier, on November 15, the township supervisors had taken up the matter of whether to withdraw Linda De Haan and Stern Nijland’s King & King (Ten Speed, 2002), which portrays the marriage of two princes to each other and, in one illustration, depicts them kissing. The book has prompted repeated challenges and a lawsuit in Massachusetts. In Lower Macungie, a community near Allentown, PA, the Issas demanded the library book's removal after taking it home to read to their young son and discovering its homosexual theme.
"I was not aware of it when I took the book out for my children," Eileen Issa wrote in her formal request for the book's removal from the library’s collection. "I believe the subject matter is very serious and should be [treated] with discretion, to honor the parents' morals and family values."
The Issas' complaint went before the six-member library board in late September. But Library Director Kathee Rhode says she convinced the directors that neither withdrawal of the book nor special labeling was a good idea. "I did have some information from a lawyer from the American Library Association," Rhode says. "She told us we would definitely open ourselves up to be sued if we did remove it from the collection. I know that the board's big concern is 'we don't want to be sued.'"
The book went back on the shelf, Rhode says. Then, without informing the library, the couple took their case to the township board, whose members, the librarian says, "decided not to micromanage the library and suggested the Issas attend a library board meeting."
The Issas did just that, attending the library directors' meeting on November 29, where their request was again turned down, following a 90-minute discussion. "The board decided to stick by their original thought," Rhode says.
About 50 emails, many from same-sex households, have subsequently reached her, says Rhode, and most have been supportive of the decision. Still, Rhode has a thought for the family behind the protest. "The Issas come to storytime all the time," she says. "And nothing's going to change there, I hope."
