Censored

Libraries Don’t Like WV Child’s Story About MTR

The March/April issue of Indy Kids, a new free newspaper distributed in New York City, carried a front page article by sixth-grader Chrystal Gunnoe, daughter of OVEC organizer Maria. The newspaper is published by the NYC Independent Media Center and distributed to primary schools, churches and libraries ... but not at all libraries.

The Manhattan and Queens branches of the NYC Public Libraries refused at first to distribute the paper because it “was not balanced.”

The Manhattan branch backed off its initial censorship, but as we went to print the Queens branch had not relented.

The libraries’ periodicals for children feature numerous ads for video games, candy and sportswear.

As public institutions supported with taxpayer dollars, the libraries have the responsibility to distribute all kinds of publications from a variety of perspectives.

We thought it was interesting that one of the largest public library systems in the nation considered this brief story controversial.

Read it and decide for yourself:

Coalfield Kid

by Chrystal Gunnoe in Indy Kids

Hello. My Name is Chrystal Gunnoe. I live in West Virginia. My hometown is in the heart of the coalfields. The coalfields are where most of the coal comes from that provides energy for the rest of the country.

Mountaintop Removal (MTR) is a new, dangerous and destructive method of extracting coal. Three million pounds of explosives are used per day to blow off the tops of the mountains to expose the coal inside. MTR is destroying the coalfields and the people who live there.

When MTR started, so did the changes in my life. I started noticing these changes very fast.

The water from our faucet tasted different, like metal. Coal and rock dust from the deafening blasts cover everything in our home. Our yard is eroding from flooding…because of the flooding I had less room to ride my bike, and when I did ride my bike, I had to walk it to a safe place to ride.

Until the flood of June 16, 2003, which destroys five acres of our property, I didn’t know what was happening.

But then that was like a wall of information hitting me – I began to understand that MTR was not good. I wanted to tell people about it. I did a science fair project on MTR. I bought a video documentary called Kilowatt Ours (www.kilowattours.org) to show my class and I talked to my friends about MTR.

One of my friends got interested in MTR with me. She told her grandmother and now she’s interested, too.