It's hard not to chortle at the gyrations of recent Hamilton County Board of Education meetings where members and watchers endured the board's "special book review committee" conversations and reports.
The committee, chaired by board member Rhonda Thurman of Hixson, came about after Thurman charged there were "vile" things in some of the books in our school libraries.
We have to wonder what middle-school child hasn't picked up a copy of something on their parent's nightstand akin to Harold Robbins' "The Carpetbaggers" - a book from the 1960s that was described in its release notes as "a big, bulging blockbuster" of a book that "glistens with as much explicit illicit sex as you are likely to find sold between the covers - of a book."
Some decades ago, we know for a fact that it swept through at least one 7th-grade classroom in Hamilton County like wildfire.
A proposed new policy - it has yet to get a vote - changes wording from "content which might be considered sensitive to parents or students" to "content which might be offensive to community standards."
It also removes a statement in support of the principles of intellectual freedom expressed in the "Library Bill of Rights" of the American Library Association.
All this holier-than-thou chest beating comes after Thurman said parents complained to her about "vile content" in reading material in schools. Specific books she referenced included "Far from the Tree" by Robin Benway and "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas, among others.
For crying out loud - our children are more at risk from some of their teachers and friends' parents than from books they get off the shelves of our school libraries.
Just look at recent headlines.
* A science teacher was arrested and charged in Bradley County this week after officials identified 30 girls who were captured on a camera he is believed to have hidden in a girls' locker room at Cleveland Middle School.
* Also this week, a 26-year-old teacher and football coach in White House, Tennessee, was charged with statutory rape after school officials received reports in February that he was having an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old cheerleader. The coach was her senior project supervisor. He faces charges of exploitation of a minor by electronic means, solicitation of a minor and four counts of statutory rape.
* Last month a McMinn County grand jury indicted an Englewood woman on 18 counts of aggravated statutory rape, four counts of human trafficking by patronizing prostitution and one count of solicitation of a minor. Court documents allege that one of her victims was 14. The 38-year-old school booster club mom is accused of having sexual contact with at least nine minor boys - NINE - between spring 2020 and late December 2021.
* And don't forget it was our school system that was shaken in 2015 when an Ooltewah freshman basketball player was raped with a pool cue by teammates during a tournament outing in Gatlinburg while coaches and chaperones left the boys unattended in a vacation house basement. A school board-commissioned report later found that culture of bullying and hazing existed on the school's basketball team for months, maybe even years, before the incident. The victim was so injured so badly he required surgery.
Clearly, library books should not be our chief concern, but sadly, it isn't just our school board that has suddenly become consumed with draconian reading rules.
The Tennessee General Assembly this week sent a school library bill to the governor's desk aimed at scrutinizing library materials for "age appropriateness." A separate school library bill, which could allow librarians to be charged with a criminal offense if "obscene" material is found in a school's collection, is still being discussed in House and Senate education committees.
Tennessee also was among the first states last year to enact a law prohibiting K-12 teachers from discussing certain "divisive concepts, especially related to race and gender.
But we're not alone. A national spike in book challenges and bans in both school curricula and libraries, along with prohibitions against teaching about systemic racism, are burning through our statehouses like "The Carpetbaggers" stormed middle school lockers here years ago. Now Volunteer State lawmakers are looking to ban "divisive concepts" in college classes, too.
Certainly we don't expect school library shelves lined with Harold Robbins' books, but the books that prompted Hamilton County's policy change proposal and Tennessee's new laws are nothing like that.
When McMinn County school board decided in January to pull "Maus," a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Holocaust from its middle-school curriculum, it was said to be over a naked mouse and the word "damn." Seriously? Not about the "divisive concept" of man's inhumanity to man?
When and how are we going to teach our children to think for themselves?
Our school boards - and especially our lawmakers - need to worry about real concerns.
For starters they might worry more about teaching our youngsters to read, write, add and subtract. Teaching them to treat one another with respect and kindness. Teaching them to think critically - in other words, think for themselves.