Editor’s Note: This is one of a series of profiles of the Wisconsin Idea in action. See past profiles we have published.

School librarians have an inherently behind-the-scenes profession, but what happens when they are thrust into a very public controversy over a challenged book?

Donna Smith, library media specialist for the Arrowhead Union High School in Hartford, Wis., can answer that question personally. In 2004, her school faced an informal and later formal challenge to the book “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, due to its language and sexual content. And in her 15 years of experience, little prepared Smith for what followed:

Stinging attacks on a local talk radio program ... accusations that the book is “borderline pornography” ... school voice-mail boxes overflowing with comments from listeners of a national Christian radio network ... a police presence at the book challenge meeting ... an organized, independent group of 200 students supporting the book ... a general feeling among teachers and staff of being “under siege.”

Kathleen Horning, director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at UW-Madison, talks to a group of students visiting Edgewood College on Feb. 12. During the talk, Horning displayed a recent series of award-winning children’s books and led the group on a tour of the CCBC facilty.

Photo: Jeff Miller

Smith was responsible for developing the formal response to the parental challenge over the book, and her first call was to UW–Madison’s Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC). CCBC is devoted to promoting quality children’s books in Wisconsin schools, but it also has an intellectual freedom service for schools facing challenges.

“I knew they were a good resource, but I didn’t know how good until I had this issue,” says Smith, a UW–Madison alumna. “The same afternoon I called them, they had more than 40 pages of background research on the book faxed over to me.”

Equally valuable was the professional support given during what can be an emotionally harrowing experience. “When you have a challenge, you start to feel like a horrible person,” she says. “The CCBC really helps with the emotional side of this. You feel like you’re out on a limb, but they kind of talk you down.”

It was the information — primarily reviews, book awards and other professional assessments of the book — that helped the school board make its decision, by a 5-3 vote, to keep the book in the library.

“The materials and support go above and beyond what any other professional organization would do for us during our challenge,” Smith says.

Kathleen Horning, director of the CCBC, says the confidential intellectual freedom service is the only one of its kind in the nation and serves only Wisconsin schools and libraries. In recent years, the service has averaged between 70 and 120 inquiries annually.

“We’ve all had the experience of taking a phone call from someone who is experiencing an intellectual freedom issue,” says Horning. “And their voice is really shaky and you can tell it’s scary for them just to make the call. Sometimes people feel really isolated.”

Megan Schliesman, coordinator of the center’s intellectual freedom service, emphasizes that the CCBC never takes a formal position on a book challenge. “It is not our job to decide whether that book is right for a particular community or classroom,” she says. “What we provide is background and expert material on the book itself.”

This material can be critical in helping a school board or library board make an informed decision on a book. But more often than not, Schliesman says, the material helps improve the conversation between school staff and parents. The vast majority of calls are about questions and concerns about books, rather than formal challenges.

“It’s part of the democratic process to listen to those concerns and not put up a wall with parents and say, ‘Here’s a form to fill out,’” she says. “Often, a parent asking a question doesn’t necessarily mean a book is being challenged. We look at it as an opportunity for more communication with that parent.”

Schliesman says the service prides itself not only on its depth of research, but the timeliness of the response. Understanding that book controversies can become quickly inflamed, CCBC tries to respond within 24 hours and has a graduate student researcher devoted to the task. “We kind of treat this like an ER — we don’t know when the calls will come in, but we need to be ready when they do.”

Challenged book issues can be very difficult and complex, and often deal with a confluence of interests, Horning says. Schools want parents to take active roles in what their children are reading. But they also need to weigh the concerns of individuals against their educational responsibility to all students. Horning finds that a middle-ground solution, where alternative texts are offered to those opposed to a particular book, will resolve most of the conflicts.

As for the resolution at Arrowhead School, Smith says it led to one positive outcome. The school conducted a thorough review of its policies related to book selection and posted the written rationale for new book selections online to have better transparency with the public.

The CCBC is more than 40 years old, but the intellectual freedom service was launched in 1978 by former CCBC director Ginny Moore Kruse. As a former school teacher and librarian, Kruse recognized that CCBC had access to information that could assist schools facing book challenges. The office has received state and national awards for its service.

In 2006, CCBC launched a supporting Web service called “What IF?”, which allows educators to post questions about intellectual freedom issues. Some recent questions include:

• “How do I respond to student complaints about a condom ad in a magazine?”
• “Should I remove a book from a library collection while a complaint is pending?”
• “I’m afraid of the possible repercussions of collecting books with gay and lesbian content in our small public library. What should I do?”

In each case, CCBC staff try to answer in a way that could have value to other professionals, Schliesman says.

CCBC is most known for its annual “Choices” publication, which includes more than 200 recommendations across the K-12 spectrum of the best new books for children and young adults published each year. That publication is followed with outreach visits and workshops across Wisconsin, raising awareness of the best books available.

The Rhinelander Children’s Book Festival is one of the highlights of the year, Horning says, and CCBC will be represented at this year’s event March 6-7 for the 20th straight year. Center staff also has visits lined up this spring to schools and libraries in Racine, West Salem, New Berlin, Ripon, Appleton, Kenosha and Milwaukee.

Horning says the CCBC has also developed a nationally recognized specialty in books with multicultural perspectives. Despite improvements in the 1980s, there has been a dearth of available books from authors of color. Less than 3 percent of all books published for children in the United States were written or illustrated by a person of color.

CCBC has focused a lot of attention in recent years to Wisconsin schools looking for more books on Hmong culture and perspectives. There is remarkably little available, Horning says, and school districts in Minneapolis and Appleton have taken it upon themselves to develop their own curriculum materials.

Horning notes that reading remains a vibrant pursuit among young people, and there is no apparent loss of interest despite all the competing demands on a young person’s time. The Harry Potter book series is a great example of a recent “golden age” in intense readership among young people.

“When I went to school in the early 1980s, there was lots of popular talk about ‘the death of the book’ and the ‘paperless society,’” Horning notes with amusement. “But there is just something about books.”