but they would have to be awfully convincing if i'd thought-- which we would hope ahead of time teachers had-- about appropriateness before they selected the book. i find my bigger problem with teachers is not taking risks, but, you know, it's that they're not taking risks. not that they are and getting in trouble. it's that they're censoring before the book ever reaches the child. i'm getting teachers saying, "well, now, i really can't take that book, "because it has a witch on the cover. "i really can't take that book, because i've heard it has this or that in it." and, in fact, i just had it last week. i mean, i have it almost weekly, that i deal with this in one way or another, either with a parent or with a teacher. and so what i'm worried about is a sort of blanding out. and when the teacher that taught shabanu, who was the most wonderful woman-- i mean, she should really be here. she was the genius behind how the book was taught. when at the very end of this process, someone-- the final salvo with somebody at the administration calling her in and saying to her, "well, why would you want to teach a controversial book?" and she had the most wonderful response.

she said, "well, can you name any book "that is meaningful and meaty that i could teach that wouldn't be controversial to someone?" you know, any book that really has content-- someone is going to be offended by it. it's only the most bland kind of literature, the kind of formulaic literature with no voice and no character and no whatever that's going to meet the test of-- everybody's going to be yawning, but no one will be offended. i do want to speak on behalf of the publishers for a moment, because after years and years and years of running scared-- and i'm not saying that they still aren't scared, but i do--i think i see a new dawn coming, where they've had it. they've had enough, and they are beginning to be willing to take some risks again. and i think, maybe, the harry potter controversy-- or maybe they've just seen

how well scholastic has done with it. [laughter] but i-i hope that i do see this, that the fear is lessening and they're beginning to stand up. a wonderful conversation. thank you all for joining us today. i'm ken paulson. back next week with another conversation about the first amendment and free expression. hope you can join us then for speaking freely. captioning provided by the freedom forum first amendment center captioning by captionmax www.captionmax.com