Last Friday I completed my interview with Trish Warren at Thomas, and while challenging in some ways, the interview gave us great perspective along with a useful avenue for additional research. I came to the interview with a list of questions similar to the one I posted in my blog last week, but the interview turned much more conversational flowing in and out of different previously drawn fields of questioning. While unexpected, I think the quickly moving subjects represented Trish’s passion for the topic as one story would cue another and so forth. At the start of the interview, I took Cathy’s advice and was pretty direct in asking what information Trish would be willing to share about those that challenged the case. She said she would if she could, and that she just does not remember the specific names at this point, if the district even shared them with her over the course of the challenge. What she did remember is that the man who initially challenged Rainbow Boys was involved with a Webster church and had a daughter in 6th grade, sending them to the public library in the summer of 2006 to look for a story to use for her summer assignment. Looking in the section labeled high school, despite her age, they found Rainbow Boys and the father was displeased with the content of the book he saw that day. He called then-assistant superintendent Ellen Agostinelli who immediately pulled the book from the display upon his request.
At this point Trish stopped and showed me the district policy (5292) that should’ve been followed. The policy details the four step process librarians had set for challenged books and though Trish Warren said she would not have expected Ms. Agostinelli to have been familiar with 5292, this represents some serious discord between different parts of the Webster faculty. Then, in the meeting where Rainbow Boys was reinstated, Ms. Warren remembered, “vividly,” a group of three men, all representing a single church she cannot specifically remember, read select sexual lines from Rainbow Boys and a handful of other books. Trish encouraged them to think about the book’s larger context. Isolating a line will not reveal whether the book, holistically, has merit. She said for as long as she’s been a librarian, whenever she goes to buy a new book she asks the question “so what?”. If the book can help a student build their identity and expand their perspective then the thematic material should outweigh occasional inappropriate content. Though Trish noted that this policy places her on different sides of the censorship debate as her decision to not offer The Perks of Being a Wallflower under this same code drew criticism. Understanding a piece Trish’s general philosophy as a librarian will be useful for case details and our broader perspective piece. Next, I want to reach out the the former public librarian Trish mentioned in our interview that could hopefully remember the name of one or more of the men who raised the challenge or at least the church they represented. This post could use an attached transcript of the interview or a suitable picture of Trish, but I’m currently working on both of those and they will appear on the website.