Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Too grown up?

I have just acquired a copy of Watchmen, which I felt compelled to purchase from my school library. I recommended a bunch of graphic novels (they put out a form asking for recommendations), and they diligently bought several of them. All was going smoothly until this morning, when the concerns of one of the school librarians were brought to my attention: *KKK references *Sexual content - specifically rape *Violence They haven't read the book, but it's easy to flick through a comic and look at the images and get concerned. It's a little while since I read Watchmen, and I hadn't looked at any parts of it in isolation when I made the recommendation. I merely looked at the fact that it's a classic of the genre, and is actually meaty enough to be usable for a Y13 theme study text. I wasn't about to recommend it to juniors, but if you put a book in a school library, you can be sure that a junior student is going to pick it up some time - especially if it's a graphic novel. So, much concern and alternate plans hatched to house it in the staff section, and I decided that, since I don't already have it, I'd offer to buy the book for myself. Unfortunately they'd already stamped the inside cover before flicking through it, so couldn't return it to the bookstore. I don't mind picking up a copy of it at all - it's been on my wish-list for some time. It's just a little sad that it can't live in a school library. There are solid reasons, and having fielded complaints from parents about very 'clean' fantasy books (Wizard of Earthsea) I know exactly how it feels to have a book challenged, or a parent offended, and no librarian needs that. Now I just need to bring some $ to school so I can pick up my near-pristine copy of Watchmen!


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Watchmen is disturbing but not gratuitously so. I personally think it is shame that college kids are not deemed mature enough to read it (as that was when I read it) but I understand the sensitivities.

Matt said...

As I said I think it's entirely appropriate for seniors (about 15 and up), but I hadn't looked at it and thought about how a 12 year old might react. There are some students at college who don't even become teenagers until half way through their first year.

I'd love to have a class set of graphic novels and be able to use it as a Y12 or Y13 text, but I can see that unrestricted access in the library might not be in line with the school's priorities...

I've been rereading parts of it this morning, and am totally hooked. I suspect I will have reread the whole thing by the end of the weekend :)

Anonymous said...

Did you get Dark Knight Returns for the library too and if so were there any comments? There are some pretty dark parts in that too.

Matt said...

Apparently the local bookstore could only source the hardback of Dark Knight Returns, so the library didn't pick it up.