Young adult book featuring diversity removed from Sparta middle school library

SPARTA — The Sparta Board of Education voted to remove a young adult novel from the middle school library following a parent complaint, a controversial move that has many concerned about censorship and book banning in the district.

The board's 5-2 vote at Thursday's meeting — members Lauren Collier and Craig Palleschi were absent — moved all copies of the 2017 book "The Upside of Unrequited" to the high school library effective Friday.

The decision ran counter to the opinion of a district review committee, which recommended the novel remain in the middle school with an "8" on the binder denoting it as a book for eighth-graders. Prior to the vote, Sparta assistant superintendent Tara Rossi reminded the board that, per district policy, "no challenged material may be removed solely because it presents ideas that may be unpopular or offensive to some."

The board initially voted on whether to accept the committee's recommendation, but the motion failed 5-2 with only Wendy Selander and Vanessa Serrano voting yes. A second motion, to move the book to the high school, passed by the same margin thanks to the votes of President Kurt Morris, Vice President Leigh McMichael, Walter Knapp, LeeAnne Pitzer and Christina Keiling.

Discussion of the book

An NPR review of "The Upside of Unrequited" highlighted its diversity, including an interracial family and several LGBTQ+ characters. The book also discusses sexual themes like virginity and orgies, which prompted Christina Korines, a parent in the district, to challenge its place in the middle school.

"How is this appropriate for children?" Korines asked at Thursday's meeting. "How am I unreasonable for asking you guys to put these books in a selective place? Nobody asked for a book ban."

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Selander said the passages shared within the community have been taken out of context, and the central theme of the book is a teenage girl trying to be comfortable in her own skin.

"I think that gets lost when you're just throwing around words like 'orgy,' 'sex' and whatever else," Selander said. "There's so much more to the book than these little phrases that are thrown out without context. That's alarming when that happens."

McMichael, in response, said she read the entire novel and felt it would be more appropriate for high school students than middle-schoolers.

"Maturation level is so variable between students," she said. "Fourteen (years old) for one child may be very different than 14 for another child, and I think that we have to be really careful."

The public reacts

The board's vote, while applauded by a group of audience members, drew outrage from the majority of the public. Several spoke out against the book's potential removal prior to the vote, and many of the same speakers returned to the podium after the decision to voice their displeasure.

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Those who opposed the vote praised Selander and Serrano, along with Rossi and superintendent Matt Beck, who formed the review committee, for their work to keep "The Upside of Unrequited" in the middle school. They faulted the rest of the board for ignoring the district's media specialists who already vetted the reading material for students.

"All I can say is, 'Et tu, Brute?'" said Mike Gottesman, founder of the New Jersey Coalition to Protect Public Education. "Not only have you stabbed in the back all of these people who spoke, but you have sent a message to your professionals that they don't count."

Parental choice

Six of the nine Sparta board members — Morris, McMichael, Collier, Knapp, Pitzer and Keiling — ran together under the "Students First" banner in the November election. The slate prioritized parental choice and transparency in the district's curriculum, particularly as it pertained to the state's controversial new sexual education standards.

But speakers Thursday viewed the book's removal as, in essence, an example of parents making a decision for other students rather than only for their own children.

"If you don't like french fries, you don't demand to remove all of the potatoes from the cafeteria," said Kaitlin Gagnon, a parent in the district and board candidate in the 2022 election.

How the decision may impact the district

Chad Wood, Sparta's student representative on the board, said he was "horrified" and "at a loss for words" following the decision. Like others who spoke, he expressed concern about the potential precedent it sets for similar books with mature content.

Some speakers alluded to the possibility of filing an ethics complaint against the board, which attorney Marc Zitomer dismissed. The process followed district policy from the committee formation and review to the board's vote, he said, and the outcome of a vote does not constitute an ethical violation.

Residents speak out

The Sparta community rallied against the proposed removal of "The Upside of Unrequited" prior to Thursday's meeting. An online petition against the removal of books had more than 500 signatures as of Friday afternoon, and some audience members brought books to the meeting to support the freedom to read.

Their efforts did not sway the board, leaving many in the audience deeply frustrated.

"To say that I am disappointed in our newly elected board is the understatement of the century," said Jen Hamilton, a Sparta parent and former board member. "The fact that you sat here today and substituted your judgment on my children, my parenting abilities, because you feel that a book is inappropriate for that age group, is appalling."

This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: 'The Upside of Unrequited' banned from Sparta NJ school library