Going into the week of March 5th, our focus is on maximizing the effectiveness of my interview with Trish Warren this Friday afternoon. While Liz prepares to interview Alex Sanchez, I will focus more on the meeting with Trish, though we’ll take a collaborative approach to drafting the questions and analyzing each interviewee’s responses. I had already temporarily secured permission to interview Trish about a month ago when I initially reached out asking for information about the Rainbow Boys challenge. On February 6th, Trish said “I would be happy to meet with you in March. I will share as much as I can, though I will have to be a maintain a degree of confidentiality when it comes to specifics.” Obviously, we can see Trish is aware that there are some restrictions on what is appropriate to share, which is an admirable stance, but not necessarily useful to our project. With the case happening over a decade ago, perhaps Trish will be willing to share a little more information than if the challenge happened last month. Just today I reached out to confirm that Trish was willing to interview and set up a time and place. Trish agreed to my proposal to meet sometime in the afternoon this Friday March 9th. We plan to meet in the library which should be a quiet but friendly place to conduct the interview. I’ll pick up a recording device from CIT before departure from Geneseo on Friday morning, and I’ll be able to meet the somewhat tight 72 hour loan window, having to come back to campus for departure for (warm and sunny!) spring break by Sunday evening anyways. I also need to remember to bring the COPLAC permission to interview form and have Trish sign it. Thinking about the actual questions that should be asked in the interview, I want to build off of the material Trish already included in our initial correspondence.
- As a librarian, what are your thoughts on issue of challenging books as it relates to your profession? To your personal views?
- Recalling the challenge to Rainbow Boys, do you remember the specific dates or months of important moments in the case like the initial complaint, the book’s removal, and the ensuing return?
- Depending on how much you are comfortable with sharing, describe the meeting with you, the building principals, and the complaining parent. What positions did you advocate for in that meeting? What did the parent(s) advocate for? How did you feel about the resulting agreement to return Rainbow Boys but more closely screen future books? How do you feel about reading every summer reading book?
- Did this issue ever reach a board meeting or somewhere it was recorded by the district? What were the results of Mrs. Agostinelli’s decision to remove the book from the display without following procedure? What was that initial procedure?
- My partner Liz and I have gone through a variety of channels to try and access the name of one or more of the parents that challenged the book. Do you have any advice on finding the name and/or are you willing to share that name if you know it?
- Liz and I would also like to offer a teacher perspective on the Rainbow Boys challenge and banned books in general. Are there any teachers you think would be willing to discuss this? Carly Maldonado shared Carole Barnabas’ name with us- do you have any means of contacting her that you could share or might you be willing to ask her permission for us to contact her?
- In our research we heard about Perks of Being a Wallflower also being challenged in Webster; do you recall that? How do the two cases relate?
- Is Rainbow Boys currently available in the Webster Thomas Library?
What are your thoughts on representation of LGBT characters or other underrepresented groups in YA books; how does it matter?