My wife and I were driving along the old highway, and we saw a couple of boxes at the side. My wife wondered if they might be stolen UPS deliveries. No, they were boxes of used, but still in excellent condition children's books; the old fashioned kind that teach phonetics, published by Disney some years back. They could have taken them to a thrift store, where they would have provided pleasure and education to kids still not in kindergarten. Or they could have been taken to the dump (which is free, in this county).
I keep hearing from social workers depressing stories of children thrown away, by parents apparently unaware that child neglect is a crime.
They could have taken them to a thrift store, where they would have have been thrown away, because you can't economically prove books that old don't contain lead.
ReplyDeleteOr so is my understanding of a meat axe law passed by the Congress when a few too many toxic or otherwise dangerous items for children were being imported from the PRC. I doubt this "book burning" by the visible foot of government was planned, but I'm sure it was viewed as a happy coincidence by most of those who voted for the law.