America Soon To Be Banning All Children's Books Published Before 1985..?

Are old children's books soon to become the latest black market item in the United States?

"I just came back from my local thrift store with tears in my eyes! I watched as boxes and boxes of children’s books were thrown into the garbage!..."

Yesterday I downloaded the latest PJM Political Podcast from Pajamas Media, as has become my habit, to listen to during my weekly Sunday hike through mountain trails. The show contained a stunning interview that stopped me in my forest tracks, I just couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Ed Driscoll was talking to Walter Olson about some unforeseen consequences to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, and the upcoming destruction of millions (or is it billions?) of dollars of inventories that the new law requires... proving once again that good intentions are no guarantee of just results.

[To be clear: the above quote is not from the podcast, it is from a shocked observer of the results of the legislation, as related in Olson's article, "The New Book Banning" .]

In the first hour of his radio show today, Hugh Hewitt interviewed guest Gary Wolensky on this unintended war on thrift shops and libraries... will download and listen to that tomorrow.

UPDATE: From the Boston Pheonix, how the CPSIA will inadvertently affect libraries:

The CPSIA, intended to keep lead out of toys, may well also keep books out of libraries, says Emily Sheketoff, associate executive director of the American Library Association.

“We are very busy trying to come up with a way to make it not apply to libraries,” said Sheketoff. But unless she succeeds in lobbying Capitol Hill for an exemption, she believes libraries have two choices under the CPSIA: “Either they take all the children’s books off the shelves,” she says, “or they ban children from the library.”