The Rutland Free Library in Vermont is opening its new Freedom to Read Book Club with “Daddy’s Roommate,” an out-of-print 1990s picture book about a boy whose divorced father lives with another man.
In 1995, a local parent’s call to separate the book from the children’s collection drew CNN and NBC crews to the Rutland library, where nearly 350 people crowded inside and around the building for a hearing at which library trustees rejected limits on access. The trustees’ action that day earned them a national American Library Association award.
Reports VT Digger:
For newcomers, the inaugural selection of the Rutland Free Library’s upcoming Freedom to Read Book Club might seem an unusual choice: an out-of-print 1990s children’s title with only one sentence on each of its 32 pages.
But ask any longtime local: “Daddy’s Roommate” has plenty of backstory.
When leaders at the public library added the picture book to their 76,000-volume collection three decades ago, they hoped to help preschoolers whose fathers had divorced their mothers to move in with another man.
“Mommy says Frank and Daddy are gay,” notes the book’s young narrator, who asks what that means.
“Being gay is just one more kind of love,” the mother responds. “And love is the best kind of happiness.”
A now-deceased Rutland parent disagreed. In the spring of 1995, she shared her concerns with neighbors, conservative groups and national television networks. Two months later, nearly 350 people stood in and outside the library as its governing board reviewed and ultimately rejected calls to limit access to the book.
Today, about half the local population wasn’t alive or around during the debate, according to the census, while the library staff has changed completely. But the question of who should be able to read what lingers, with the American Library Association reporting the highest U.S. rate of book complaints since it began collecting data in 1990.
“Censorship has not been at this level since Joe McCarthy was in the U.S. Senate,” Rutland library director Randal Smathers, rewinding to the 1950s, said in an interview. “There is an organized and politicized attack on what the whole country can read, say and think.”
In response, Rutland’s new Freedom to Read Book Club is inviting the public to meet the first Monday of each month from October through May to learn about specific titles and why they’re sparking debate.