I was the kid reading several years above my level and spending most lunches and afternoons in the library because I wanted to read every book while I still had access to them.

That was me, as well, and while I understand amadi's larger point, my own childhood would have been so much poorer had it been stripped of problematic texts (the Narnia books, the Little House series, A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, and everything L.M. Montgomery ever wrote, all of which I literally reread until the books feel apart).

I don't know. I get why the idea of removing sexist and racist literature from elementary school libraries can be appealing, from both an adult and a child standpoint (Kipling's If, which I read when I was seven or eight, was the first time I remember being so pissed off a book that I wanted to hurl it across the room), and I absolutely get why people would prefer children not read problematic texts without an explanation of why they're problematic. But depriving children of everything written before about mid-last century without an accompanying teacher explaining why the books are bad can't be the answer.