Leading up to Banned Books Week 2012, ALA will highlight one book from its new timeline of banned and challenged books each day. Today we feature the year 1998 and “Daddy’s Roommate,” by Michael Willhoite.
In 1998, “Daddy’s Roommate” was challenged at the Brevard County (FL) Library and at the Hays (KS) Public Library, where a resident objected to the picture book’s “teaching of the homosexual lifestyle as another way to show love.” At the Wichita Falls (TX) Public Library, when a request to have the book banned failed, the complainant kept the book from other patrons by keeping it checked out for a year. The deacon body of the First Baptist Church requested that any literature that promotes or sanctions a homosexual lifestyle be removed. After the Wichita Falls City Council established a policy allowing library card holders who collect 300 signatures to have children’s books moved to an adult portion of the library, U.S. District Court Judge Jerry Buchmeyer ordered attorneys to agree to a restraining order, which put the books back in the children’s section.
For more information about Banned Books Week, please visit www.ala.org/bbooks.
