Recently a local Cameron resident, Mr Dan Landi, shared with me a book he found in the Cameron high school library. He found it with the school districts online book catalog through the school districts website. The book was the graphic novel version of Slaughterhouse Five. This was of particular interest because it contains pictures of people having sex, making it illegal for school to provide to children under Missouri statute 573.550. I confirmed the book showed as being in the online catalog through the resource Go Follett by selecting the state and appropriate school. I was able to find it in the CHS library catalog.
I found a website dedicated to the book fight in the Rockwood, MO, school district called Library Exposed. Searching their website I was able to see some of the images found in the book Slaughterhouse Five. I was able to determine why MO schools were pulling it. I will link directly to that page for the adults who want to be informed.
That got me curious, I wondered how many other books were in Cameron high school that had been pulled from Missouri schools for containing porn, as defined by Missouri statute 573.550. A quick internet search and I found an article from November of 2022 which said 300 books had been banned in Missouri because of the then newly implemented law. The article linked to a google document where there is a list of books and their authors which have been removed by various Missouri school district. A little copy and paste and I was able to see how many of those books still showed up in the Cameron high school library. To my dismay, I found 20 books in the Cameron high school library which appear other schools in Missouri determined were sexually explicit enough to remove . Twenty books which other Missouri school districts pulled from their shelves because they contained pictures which they were concerned would cause them to be in violation of Missouri law prohibiting schools from providing sexually explicit books to children.
In a previous blog entry, I discussed the graphic novel book Watchmen. I showed some of the content from that book, also found on the Library Exposed website. I include a video in that blog entry where I show the content and relevant statutes. You can find the blog post and video at Graphic novel Watchmen.
The image to the right is from a screen shot taken of the high school library catalog which shows Watchmen was in the library and was checked out to a Cameron high school student.
We obtained records from March 3, 2023 from the Cameron school district through Missouri Sunshine Law requests that show Robinson informed the board of education by email about a conversation he had with all the district librarians in August of 2022. He told the board “I sat down with all librarians in August and shared my thoughts on controversial books and shared that our day is coming, it’s only a matter of time.” That indicates he knew there were books that would concern parents and members of the community. Did they know about these books then? Why didn’t they take steps in August to avoid this issue? Has their day arrived? Hopefully it has and this means these books will finally be removed.
In April of 2023, Andi Lockridge, the attorney who sits on the Cameron board of education, asked the superintendent Matt Robinson during that months board of education meeting if any of those books, as defined by the statute she read aloud, were in the Cameron school district. He responded by shaking his head and said “no”. You can watch a recording of that board meeting that was live streamed on Citizen Observer Facebook page. The relevant portion begins around the 46 minute and 20 second mark.
Here is the current list of books which we found on the library catalog for the Cameron high school.
- Autopsies by Jeffrey Gary
- The Dark Knight series by Frank Miller
- Brazen:Rebel Ladies who rocked the world by Penelope Bagieu
- Grass by Gendry-Kim
- Himawari House by Harmony Becker
- How It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
- Red Rising by Pierce Brown
- Salughterhouse Five graphic novel by Vonnegut
- Speak the graphic novel by Laurie Anderson
- Spinning by Tillie Walden
- The Best We Can Do by Thi Bui
- The Giver by Craig Russell
- The Sacrafice of Darkness by Roxane Gay
- Watchmen by Allen Moore
