(From: Merriam, E., & Smith, L. (1987). Halloween ABC. New York: Macmillan.)
The following classroom or library exercise is designed as a simulation activity to encourage participants to think about intellectual freedom issues and to prepare future teachers, librarians, and community members for actual intellectual freedom disputes. Studying the background materials that are linked to or listed on this page will help participants to formulate well-researched thoughts and arguments. As the teacher or librarian overseeing the debate, you can easily adapt this activity to any number of participants by adding or subtracting characters to or from the cast of characters.
To add an element of surprise to the debate, encourage the participants to keep their assigned roles secret. However, you will want to distribute the (fictional) AP wire news brief and the recommdended information sources bibliography to the entire cast at least a week before the debate. Immediately following the debate, you can lead a discussion in which the cast members can explore their own opinions of the book, their feelings about the debate, and how their experiences during this activity affected their views about intellectual freedom.
Maysville, Michigan--Controversy is brewing in the quiet town of Maysville. Within the past month, Pat Ortiz, children's librarian at the Maysville Free Public Library, has received three requests for the removal of Halloween ABC from the library. Although Maysville is normally a peaceful suburban community, the town is sharply divided between those who feel that the book should be removed from the collection and those who feel that it should be retained. Tempers are running high as Maysville citizens debate the issue at grocery stores, at shopping malls, and at the feet of the local tourist attraction, the tallest ceramic jack rabbit east of the Mississippi.
Halloween ABC is a picture book of Halloween poems and drawings, written by Eve Merriam and illustrated by Lane Smith. Those who requested its removal claim that the book is frightening, violent, anti-Christian, and generally unsuitable for children. Lee Farley, president of the local Family Friendly Libraries organization, characterizes the movement to remove the book from the library's collection as "a necessary step toward increasing the awareness in our community of the need to protect our children from harmful materials in our public libraries. Children simply aren't ready to read about devils, demons, and violence. The public library should be a place where they are protected from such dangers."
Ortiz sums up the other side of the debate as "the desire to preserve a diverse, high quality collection for the children of Maysville. Halloween ABC is a great book. The vast majority of our young patrons find it amusingly irreverent, rather than terrifying or anti-Christian. We owe it to our children to keep this book."
Since the library's collection maintenance policy mandates that the Library Board consider the fate of any book receiving three or more removal requests, the Board will hold a special meeting next week to discuss this issue. After listening to public discussion, the Board members will vote to determine what action, if any, to take. The meeting is expected to draw numerous vocal proponents from both sides of the controversy.
See the cast of characters for suggested debate roles.
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created 12/05/98; last updated 4/27/09