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Wednesday Night Book Thread

61
gmsc5/20/2009 7:52:27 pm PDT

re: #6 MandyManners

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.

After that law passed, one local (non-chain) bookstore advertised here in Las Vegas, “Well, Congress has now made it illegal to sell children’s book from 1984 and before, for your safety! We will comply with this ‘1984 book rule’, as we are concerned about your safety as well! To comply, we will be disposing of all our ‘1984 and before’ books during the coming week!

“All these ‘1984 and before’ children’s books will be lined up outside the back of our store, located at [address edited out]. Remember these are dangerous books! It would be horribly unsafe if people were just to come around to the back of [address edited out] and started taking these books for free! Remember, Congress has declared that these books are unsafe and should be banned. Please do not come around to the back of [address edited out] during this week and take the books that are just lying out there, even though they are completely free! Remember, pay heed to Congress ‘1984 book banning law’! Protect yourself from these dangerous books today!”

I loved it – and the book store can honestly defend itself by saying they didn’t sell any such books, and even warned people against taking them.