Apparently, books with butts can unlock a whole new can of worms leading to more disagreements than before. Books with butts were banned but are now being allowed back in Katy ISD after 14 titles were removed.
The Katy Independent School District in Texas updated its criteria for book removals, expanding the terms under which a book could be removed to list “nudity” as the definition of inappropriate material. This change resulted in elementary-level books getting pulled for review in August and September 2023 after an internal committee deemed the titles to be inappropriate for children.
Some of the newly banned books included “No, David!” by David Shannon, Dr. Seuss’s “Wacky Wednesday,” “The Paper Bag Princess” by Robert Munsch and “Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret” by Judy Blume.
In Shannon’s book, David is shown running down the street without any clothes to avoid taking a bath, with his rear end on full display. In Seuss’ rhyming book, the “nudity” scene shows the boy turning around in the shower as he notices a palm tree in the toilet.
Since the backlash over these removals reached an all-time high, the board voted to amend the policy to now state that only “explicit frontal nudity” would result in a book’s removal. “The board’s intent was never to remove well-known cartoon-like children’s books just because they showed a little drawing of a little boy’s rear-end,” said board president Victor Perez.
“The only change is to provide more specificity as to nudity and we have deleted the term ‘implied nudity.’ This will make the policy more clear.” Perez also added that the board’s ultimate goal is to protect children from so-called “sexually explicit,” “obscene,” and “harmful” material.
Source: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/neighborhood/katy/article/katy-isd-book-ban-updated-18388410.php