The New Book Banning

Any children's book printed before 1985 can't be resold and is required to be destroyed. This means bookstores and thrift shops and Good Will and ______ (fill in the blank) can't sell or resell these books. I wonder if they are sold in tag sales or garage sales if the people will get in trouble.

City Journal

It’s hard to believe, but true: under a law Congress passed last year aimed at regulating hazards in children’s products, the federal government has now advised that children’s books published before 1985 should not be considered safe and may in many cases be unlawful to sell or distribute. Merchants, thrift stores, and booksellers may be at risk if they sell older volumes, or even give them away, without first subjecting them to testing—at prohibitive expense. Many used-book sellers, consignment stores, Goodwill outlets, and the like have accordingly begun to refuse new donations of pre-1985 volumes, yank existing ones off their shelves, and in some cases discard them en masse.

I understand the problem with products from China. I understand trying to keep children safe. I understand that prior to 1985 it was allowed to use lead pigments and paints in childrens books. But this seems seriously wrong to me. It seems like a major waste of a resource that children could use.

For further reading - A blog that discusses this.

Seems like using a crane to crush a fly to me. Shocking. The proscribing of literature. What a goddam liberty. Over here in the UK, schools are closing at a rate of knots to make way for so called 'City Academies'. I imagine, if they ever see the light of day, curricula will be revised and prescribed with an eye to the NWO and literature shall be proscribed.

Good find. I read the source too. Not very convincing, eh?

Kids were dropping like flies back then from all sorts of ailments brought on by toxic substance laced reading material.

I wonder if it's more to do with the subject matter than the material used in the production. Back then there were no books for the kiddies based around Gay and Lesbian parents or Homosexuality and a host of other, now politically correct, subjects that the kids must learn about.

Originally posted by Britguy
I wonder if it's more to do with the subject matter than the material used in the production.

I kinda wondered that as well. Books from pre-1985 weren't modern or progressive enough? Could be. Like I said, I understand the need to protect kids from toxic substances ... but this is overboard. I can't help but wonder why. Afterall ... the government is pushing those deadly cancer vaccinations on the young girls ... but then they turn around and claim books are deadly but the vaccinations aren't?

Varied thoughts after the readng of this thread.


I read a lot of pre 1985 books......ohoh.


What happens to the indoctrinated when this wave of pc thinking comes of age?

How many of those books do I own?

Maybe I should go check the dumpster by Goddwill and Sallyann?

Wait....does that include the book 1984?



[edit on 19-2-2009 by whiteraven]

Originally posted by whiteraven
Wait....does that include the book 1984?

That was good!

Any childrens book printed before 1985 has to be banished. I don't know why they hit kids books and not adult ones. I'd think the ink would be the same. But that's the rule.

reply to post by FlyersFan


All we can do is wonder at the reasoning behind these decisions as it'll be a cold day in hell before the gov ever give us full access to any supporting material, or details of meetings where these things are discussed.

Sure would be good to be a fly on the wall at some of these meetings though.

You'd be surprised how common lead and other poisons are in old products, especially jewelry and clothing. China is notorious for using illegal substances in its products, it was about time something was done. It is not unthinkable that lead or other substances may be found in free form in old print ink, you can develop cancer or brain damage from regular close contact with a commercial printer or color film processor. A lot of those products come from Asia. A lot of those cheap wonder chemicals are also being discovered to give off deadly emissions. My question is when they will ban arsenic-treated construction lumber since it is probably leaching into the aquasystem. It's know to give off toxic gasses when burned. The bill is overkill but I also question to what extent content is a focus, somehow I wonder if HIllary's "It Takes a Village" also is going into the dump.

Well this is shocking as it should not be any law telling citizens what to do with their personal property.

Books can become collectibles and that means people do collect books.

Perhaps the library of congress should start burning all their old historical books because they could be harmful to researches.

Ridiculous.

To tell the truth this just like Hitler during his reign, the legacy of an incompetent congress.

Sorry boys and gals, but if they suggest and or start burning these books, something is going to have to be done about it. Starting to feel like Hitler rule over here. I will not stand for it. My grandfather did not die in WWII just for his country to turn into a replica of NAZI rule!

I see the contrary happening, the books will become hot items to collectors and people that just would not let the books go or be damage.

Burning or destroying literature is just play wrong and only done in totalitarian governments.

The books that will not be collected will go into the black market and will become even more look after.

Perhaps some will find this a way to make money thanks to again an incompetent congress.

We really have morons for politicians or either they are too drunk to read anything the sign.

Did anyone really consider the implications of this law? I just scanned through a large portion of it and (other than the specific lead requirements) it is pretty vague. I could see certain sections being twisted and used for other purposes than just removing lead from children's toys....which I suppose is the point.

That being said, I have a small collection of ancient (1930s-1980s) story books that no one is getting unless you pry them out of my cold dead hands. Those were my friends growing up (yes, I had no real life friends so I read). I've read them all, read them to kids I babysat, cousins, etc. You can CLEARLY see how lead-afflicted we are from it too, can't ya?

CeltAngel just appoint yourself as a book collector and should not be any problem, unless we are truly becoming a Hitler Nazi nation and they could charge you for hidding illegal items in your home.

I still can not believe how ridiculous our nation has become, you know one thing is to Burn the darn stupid cheap trash toys from China, but books, collectibles is just incredible.

But as usual you don't see any of us in Washington protesting anything that the moron congress we have has done so far.

In any advanced culture the destruction of books is seen as a horrible act, as it is akin to eradicating knowledge.

I hope I'm wrong, but if these are the kinds of measures that the US congress is passing these days then it really is the beginning of the end of America.

its all really a plot or policy to get E-Books as the norm

sure, those old tech. paper & bound with a thick cardboard cover Kids
story books of about 8 pages... will be curious collectors items...

generating as much interest as vinyl LPs do now.

today its pre-'85 storybooks
tomorrow its pre-'85 autos/trucks

Where are all of those people and organizations who were irate about Palin trying to get some books banned? I would have thought that they would have been on top of this from the word go.

Originally posted by marg6043
Well this is shocking as it should not be any law telling citizens what to do with their personal property.

Did you read the article, marg? It's not about personal property. It's about SELLING or re-distributing children's objects from a book store, Goodwill, yard sale or whatever. It's for any CHILDREN'S items that may be toxic to children that exist in the marketplace. It doesn't apply to collectors or adults. It's getting a possibly (probably) deadly substance off the shelves.

If this article showcased pajamas or a baby crib or a toy (which are all included in the law), we'd be all for getting them off the re-sale shelves...

This is much ado about nothing.

We all complain about the FDA and the government letting toxins into our environment but then when they do something to get them back out, we still complain... :shk:

No BH, this law was too generalized to even take into consideration that books should not be in there.

Our moronic incompetent congress rather than taking their time to see all the pros and cons in each single item of problem decided to generalized the whole deal.

Because they are to busy to do anything else.

goods manufactured before the law passed cannot be sold on the used market (even in garage sales or on eBay) if they don’t conform.

This an issue of private property been sold to others as purpose of exchanging collectibles.

no one seems to have been able to produce a single instance in which an American child has been made ill by the lead in old book illustrations—not surprisingly, since unlike poorly maintained wall paint, book pigments do not tend to flake off in large lead-laden chips for toddlers to put into their mouths.

This moron congress have no clue of how the affect certain parts of the issue with daring consequences.

Banning books in a modern society is wrong, communist and moronic

In addition, the 50 state attorneys general have been empowered to enforce the law on their own, and frequently take much more aggressive legal positions than those of the federal government, sometimes teaming with private lawyers who capture a share of fines imposed.

Then as usual in a lacking unregulated means to protect citizens from local governments abusing the law the sharks always find ways to make a buck at the expenses of the citizens.

We have not finished of finding what will come next with this stupidity.

The American Library Association spent months warning about the law’s implications, but its concerns fell on deaf ears in Congress (which, in this week’s stimulus bill, refused to consider an amendment by Republican senator Jim DeMint to reform CPSIA). The ALA now apparently intends to take the position that the law does not apply to libraries unless it hears otherwise.

At least one Republican senator had the intelligence to find that this moronic law was wrong when it comes to books and try to do something.

But as usual the rest of congress were to deep with their heads in their own butts to see anything wrong.

I wonder everyday of my life about the fate of my nation.

[edit on 19-2-2009 by marg6043]

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
We all complain about the FDA and the government letting toxins into our environment but then when they do something to get them back out, we still complain... :shk:

Uh .. no. The point is that their 'proof' of books printed before 1985 being toxic is lame. They let deadly vaccinations run amuk in this country but they ban childrens books based on practically nothing.

After reading this thread, I just went to Amazon to look for a childhood favorite. Apparently, Amazon is selling loads of pre 85 children's books. Now, I do realize that Amazon is just a broker for private sellers in some cases, but does that alleviate their 'responsibility'? Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

And for the record, I think this "law" is patently absurd!!