Editor, The Beacon:
I was startled to read The Beacon’s front-page headline “DeLand organizations distribute banned books” (Oct. 12-18). I worried: Is the government now trampling our most precious right of free speech and forbidding American citizens from buying or possessing disapproved books? However, upon reading the full article, I was relieved to learn that local citizens’ groups were merely giving away various books which they claim to have been excluded from public-school libraries.
As Peggy Lee once sang: “Is that all there is?” Local school boards, with parental input, are simply doing their duty by selecting school library books which are age-appropriate, free of graphic sexual content and further the core educational mission of providing schoolchildren with the foundational knowledge to prepare them for lives as informed and productive citizens.
The millions of books not chosen for school libraries haven’t been “banned” in any rational sense of the word. We Americans remain free to purchase, or check out from the public library, any of the books not chosen for the shelves of public-school libraries.
The parents and taxpaying citizens of Florida have every right to decide, through their democratically elected public officials, which books are and which books are not appropriate for our kids.
John DiChiara
DeLand
