I went into the library and asked the librarian if she knew of any good controversial books. She looked on the computer and pulled up a couple of different titles. She pulled out The Planet Hunter. I was a little puzzled at first wondering what the controversy could really be. First I figured that some people argued that Pluto was still a planet, which I'm sure is true because not everyone just believe what they hear. However, the librarian said, that the controversy lies within the library's and librarians and how to classify those books. Since Pluto is no longer a planet what do they do about the classification and so forth? So, I learned that not only are books controversial for children and their parents, they also boggle with the librarians brains in more of a educational/logic based way, which I thought was very interesting to see another perspective. I did a bit of research about the books I read. This book was a true story and got a lot of credit for being really accurate and kid friendly for the complex issue that is covered. As I was reading the book, I noticed that as well. The topic took on a story like form and in the corner of each page there was a bubble with a fact in it for more information related to what was discussed on the page but unrelated to the story line. The pictures were cartoons but when the sky was shown it was very realistic looking, the stars and planets were illustrated so well that they looked like real pictures. But I think for it to be credible the pictures of the sky had to be accurate and realistic looking to make it more believable for children. I personally didn't find anything controversial about the book. The author backed everything up so well and if you look it up on the Internet you will find the exact same information and people.
This would have been really confusing for me at first too! I am pretty sure that if I had just found this on my own I would have assumed, like you did, that the controversy was about whether or not Pluto is still a planet. Which if you think about is kind of a silly controversy, isn't it? Did non-scientists really debate this? Anyway, I would have never thought that it would cause such a headache for librarians. Incidentally, how do they classify these books?
ReplyDelete