What is inappropriate for a school library?

[Erin1975]

A librarian was investigated for stocking inappropriate books in a school library. The safeguarding concerns were eventually investigated and upheld. But the list of books deemed inappropriate is laughable. It includes Twilight, Game of Thrones, amongst others. The book that apparently kicked the whole thing off was Laura Bates' "Men Who Hate Women".

www.indexoncensorship.org/2026/03/school-book-banning-escalates-in-the-uk-as-greater-manchester-secondary-school-censors-scores-of-books/

This was not in America this was Manchester.

Ooooh my DD is doing a masters in librarianship and recently did an essay focusing on this issue. Thanks for the highlight, I will share. But yes, this is an issue, especially in the US. Most of her references for the essay related to the US. Shocked to see it becoming an issue here.

ETA: Hmmmm I gave read the piece and I am a bit suspicious of it tbh. But that's my background (being suspicious of possibly untrue stories). Will look at it more closely.

The list of books removed is a terrifying read! It's very worrying that the concerns were upheld. That poor women and everything they put her through, no wonder she wants to make people aware of what is happening.

I would actually ask MNHQ to move this thread to a busier board I think it needs to reach a much wider audience.

I had a letter from my parents to say I could read the adult books our school library. I remember pornographic books, horror, true crime with photos and more. You don't say what age school, but secondary schools have adults in them, so why should they not have access to books that are age appropriate?

This is crackers. Do this SLT want to encourage them all to learn about some of the more 'taboo' subjects on A03?, rather than having a handy school borrowing history to know what they're being exposed to.
NOT having children aware of the 'grey areas' in life is very much throwing them under the bus when they're going out into a world that will try to take advantage of them.

I was astonished to read she was told to remove all books that weren't "children's books". I had to reread to check it wasn't a primary school.

@claryI assume the article is real. It's clearly on a website which has an agenda but I have no way to corroborate what it says. All the other references I am find are just reporting in that article.

My first thought was that the headteacher and the librarian had some history and thus was just a method to get rid of the librarian but if it subsequently went to a safeguarding hearing and that hearing agreed with the headteacher then it may beirenthan a clash of personalities.

Surely it's less about what is inappropriate (unless it's The joy of sex etc) and more about what is age appropriate. Back in the mists of time all the library books were coloured coded and all school children had a library card with year on it so the librarian knew if that child was trying to take out an age inappropriate book. Isn't it a part of a schools safe guarding policy?

'Final list of alleged books' - they weren't sure if they were actually books or not? FFS.

But who gets to decide what’s ’age appropriate’? There’s no ratings system for books and in a secondary school, it would be weird to provide only children’s books. Teenagers should be reading adult fiction but it’s clear that opinions differ wildly across parents and schools when it comes to what ‘age appropriate’ means.

From the age about 11 or 12, I only really read books aimed at adults and being allowed and encouraged to do that played a huge role in my academic success. Being able to read any book I wanted to read as a kid is something I’m incredibly grateful for. If I had to pick the best thing my parents ever did for me, it would be that.

Agree with this! Having a wide range of things available to read is key, and as a PP said with a school library there’s a record of what children have read so they can be supported if they read something and are worried by it.

How ridiculous. I wouldn’t really say any novels were inappropriate for a secondary school library, especially not on the basis of a vague “inappropriate themes”. Like a PP, I only read books that were technically “adult books” (by which I mean not actively aimed at children) from about 12. I could read any book my parents had on their shelves.

Idk. It is something my secondary school implemented quite successfully but it was many, many moons ago. I do recall that it was more relaxed from fourth form, and hardly any barriers to any of the books once you hit fifth form, (notice I didn't put year group as they didn't exist back then).

There again we didn't have discussions about trans, or gender, or anime storytelling, or furries, or incels etc and the nearest we got to feminism was trying to get a job outside of typing.

Many of the older classics had rape, coercion, death, torture and other forms of cruelty so maybe it's more about the depth of descriptions or having it as the core basis of the books rather than exploring the topic at a more surface level. A lot of newer books seem to want to have shock value nowadays. Although Twilight?? 😮

Edit - I see a couple of posters have mentioned parents. School libraries are totally different to town libraries and parental overview.

The article says the school goes up to year 11.

By that age, I was reading whatever the hell I wanted to, with guidance from my (liberal, very well read) parents if I was wondering if something might be scary or grim. I find it bizarre that a school library would censor many of these books - as it happens, I think some of them are crap, but that doesn’t make them harmful. That said, I tried to read GoT and stopped because I found it too gratuitously violent pretty much for the outset - but my squeamishness shouldn’t inform a collection management policy.

I am a librarian, btw, so I have skin in this game.

The Song of Ice and Fire series is my absolute favourite series of books, but it is not appropriate for a school library. Particularly one that only has students up to the age of 16.
There is a huge difference between saying that young adults should be allowed to read what they want and schools being the vessel through which access to those books are provided. Schools have a duty to safeguard children and that means protecting them from things they may not yet understand. Books with extremely violent/sexual themes (both of which are heavily present in ASOIAF) are included in this.
If a school was showing Game of Thrones to students then there would be uproar. The books are far more graphic than the TV series.

There’s actually something of a debate going on in the world of publishing at the moment about age ratings and marketing fiction for adults. Fantasy romance is a having a bit of moment. But most of it is written for adults and lots can include very explicit sex - even more so than something like Lady Chatterly’s lover. The authors don’t write these books for year 11 age students (15/16 year olds) and they shouldn’t be in school libraries in my opinion. I’m thinking of books like Fourth Wing or Game of Thrones or A Court of Thorns and Roses. Weirdly they are sometimes classified as ´New Adult’ fiction because they appeal to young adults. But ´Young Adult’ fiction used to mean novels for teenagers.

The Game of Thrones books are fun for adults but have zero educational value. It's not quite the same as stocking DH Lawrence.

Omg - I have worked in a secondary school library and it is possible to find loose age ratings for teen books, ya13 and ya which is 15+ - I have read a lot of the books on that list and had many of them in the library I worked in. My manager didn’t include a game of thrones after consulting with other teachers, before my time we also choose not to stock Colleen hoover as again we felt these titles weren’t suitable for our library- I would spend ages reading up, scanning and sometimes reading the books to determine a she rating them marking it on the system and it would flag up if they tried to borrow it. But banning books was not something the headteacher would do. It’s actually terrifying reading that article.

I would absolutely love to know the reason behind banning I Have No Secrets by Penny Joelson. That book most definitely is written for children!

To be fair, I would ban the Twilight series as well. Utter garbage and terribly written. 😆

If it’s an 11-16 school, game of thrones is not an appropriate book as it’s very much an adult book. Yes many kids will have access to worse material via phone etc but a school library should be stocking more wholesome material, not those with adult themes

I am on a school librarians' Facebook page and the SLA (School Libraries Association) person mentioned in the article has commented on it. I assume it is genuine - but can't understand why it has not been reported more widely. We would all lose our jobs if this list was applied to all libraries - I have several of the books in my collection.

I remember Forever by Judy Blume being banned by our school librarian in the 90's. Seems pretty tame now!

I can understand why Game of Thrones and Twilight would be inappropriate for a school library. But Michelle Obama's autobiography???

Do they have the Bible and Shakespeare? They weren't written for children, and there's some pretty adult content. And what about the fiction studied in Eng Lit, which wasn't written for children?

A lot of stuff, especially the books or series with very explicit sex really isn’t appropriate for a school library. I’d put game of thrones in that category.

twilight is just crap writing.

better to have classics and young adult stuff. You don’t need porn or porn adjacent writing.

I am a secondary school librarian.

IMO all school libraries should be run by trained librarians who understand the safeguarding policy that their school will inevitably have. They should also be using their school library management system (catalogue and circulation system) to record information on the content of heir books and the age limits.

I had a 12 year old borrow a Stephen King book this week, they were only able to do so because their parent signed a form I had given them to take home.I have loads of manga I would not loan to an 11 year old and there are plenty of books for Y10 and above. Having these restrictions set on the circulation system means that my school librarians cannot loan inappropriate material either.

There’s also budget considerations. Do I want to order yet another badly written book that no one is going to read about magically transforming from being female to male - nope - and the decision on that rests with me. I have plenty of books with lesbians and gay characters, some with trans characters, I have some books with sex scenes and rape (A color Purple for example) but they are not appropriate for every child and I have to make decisions based upon content and what will be borrowed and by who.

Game of thrones is not appropriate for younger readers. Heartstopper has language in it that is inappropriate for 11 year olds, even if they know all the swear words already.

sounds to me like the librarian in this case did not have a robust policy in place and maybe failed to monitor what she was loaning and to whom.

frankly it amazes me when school librarians think they can loan any old thing to any old child and not have any concern. Schools generally share appropriate well-being information about their pupils with their staff and frankly it is a safeguarding issue that needs to be noted by librarians.