For the first time in 25 years, the Evanston Public Library will consider removing a book from its collection after local mothers and teachers objected last month to the illustration of an armed robber in a children’s story.
The library’s Board of Trustees will decide the fate of “Pinkerton, Behave!” — part of a popular series by author and illustrator Steven Kellogg — at its Wednesday night meeting. Eight Evanston mothers and teachers submitted requests for re-evaluation of the book to library officials on March 24, saying that its depiction of a burglar with a gun is inappropriate for young readers.
Evanston resident Mary Beth Schaye checked out “Pinkerton, Behave!” from the library in February to read to her 3-and-a-half-year-old daughter, who she said “loves dogs.” But Schaye said storytime was over when she reached the illustration of a scruffy, masked burglar holding a woman at gunpoint.
“I just stopped dead in my tracks,” she said. “I was horrified. I couldn’t believe it — that image in a picture book!”
After showing the book to several teachers and mothers, Schaye compiled and submitted their complaints and later requested a hearing before the library board — something that has not happened in 25 years. Library Director Neal Ney said the library has received one other request for re-evaluation in the 12 years he has worked there, when a man objected to a segment of parading Nazis in a Wagner opera video. But after filing the complaint, the man did not request a hearing, Ney said.
The library’s Materials Evaluation Committee found that the book — which ends with the Great Dane Pinkerton saving his family from the gun-wielding intruder — met the library’s selection criteria and therefore can remain on the shelf.
Ney, one of the three members on the committee, said the book met the standards of clarity, objectivity, artistic quality and reputation of the author.
“(The book) was by a well-known author, it was in high demand, it was heavily used,” Ney said. “We had no reason to remove it from the collection.”
But to Eileen Sufrin, a teacher at Beth Emet the Free Synagogue’s preschool, 1224 Dempster St., the book’s illustrations are a strong reason to take it off the shelf.
Sufrin, who submitted a complaint after Schaye brought the book to her attention, said she wouldn’t read “Pinkerton, Behave!” to her class of 4- and 5-year-olds because she thinks they would be scared.
“I mean, somebody breaking into your house and holding your mother at gunpoint — is that necessary in a juvenile book?” Sufrin asked. “I don’t think so.”
The Evaluation Committee considered options other than removal, including moving the book to another part of the library’s collection or labeling it to alert parents of its content. Committee members rejected these choices because they didn’t want to separate the book from the rest of the Pinkerton series or give it a negative stigma.
Beth Emet preschool teacher Kathy Kaberon said the committee’s final recommendation to retain the book was well-merited. Despite her original complaint that the illustration was “way out of line” for young children, she said she was impressed with the committee’s thorough evaluation of the situation and agreed that removing Kellogg’s book could affect the library’s future.
“This would be the first step on the slippery slope of banning other books,” said Kaberon, who holds a master’s degree in early childhood education. “I can see where that would be a disaster for the idea of a public library.”
Schaye said she would at least like library officials to remove the one copy of the book that does not show the robber’s gun on the cover. She said in 2002 the publishers changed the cover’s illustration to show the robber peeking through a window instead of sneaking through the door with the gun.
“We’re not supposed to, but we all judge books by their covers,” she said. “I would like them to remove (the book with the new cover). Just to give parents a fighting chance at knowing what’s inside the book.”
Schaye and the other seven women who submitted the re-evaluation requests will have the chance to address the library board at Wednesday night’s meeting before the nine members make their final decision.
Board President John Sagan said he is willing to hear the patrons’ concerns with an open mind, but added that he generally is not in favor of censoring books.
“Books are what make us free,” Sagan said. “If we start taking them away, we lose freedoms.”
