Lenore Skenazy is the chronicler of the movement to keep kids out of the outdoors except when closely supervised by hovering parents. A recent episode was titled, “Outrage of the Week: “We LOVE Seeing Children Outside (But Not Under Age 16).” It was about a housing development in Colorado that forbad children from playing outside, unsupervised, until they reached age 16. The ban has since been rescinded, to some extent, but there are still extreme elements of our society who do not want children taking on any kind of responsibility at all for their own well-being. These people are numerous enough to give Ms Skenazy no end of things to write about.
But suppose kids are kept off the streets, out of the playgrounds, and out of the yards. What are they supposed to do? Sit inside and watch television? Because some of these same types of people don’t want children reading old books, either. I learned from Walter Olsen in City Journal (by way of Banned for your Safety on LiveJournal) that Congress passed a book ban last year. (“The New Book Banning“)
It’s hard to believe, but true: under a law Congress passed last year aimed at regulating hazards in children’s products, the federal government has now advised that children’s books published before 1985 should not be considered safe and may in many cases be unlawful to sell or distribute. Merchants, thrift stores, and booksellers may be at risk if they sell older volumes, or even give them away, without first subjecting them to testing—at prohibitive expense. Many used-book sellers, consignment stores, Goodwill outlets, and the like have accordingly begun to refuse new donations of pre-1985 volumes, yank existing ones off their shelves, and in some cases discard them en masse.
No Leviathan Anklebiter award for the Consumer Products Safety Division. Banned for your Safety and Walter Olesen each get one, though.