“We cannot simply discard a wealth of our culture’s nineteenth and twentieth (century) children’s literature over this.”
It’s hard to believe, but true: under a law Congress passed last yearaimed at regulating hazards in children’s products, the federalgovernment has now advised that children’s books published before 1985should not be considered safe and may in many cases be unlawful to sellor distribute. Merchants, thrift stores, and booksellers may be at riskif they sell older volumes, or even give them away, without firstsubjecting them to testing—at prohibitive expense. Many used-booksellers, consignment stores, Goodwill outlets, and the like haveaccordingly begun to refuse new donations of pre-1985 volumes, yankexisting ones off their shelves, and in some cases discard them enmasse.<Snip>
While lead poisoning from other sources, such as paint in old houses,remains a serious public health problem in some communities, no oneseems to have been able to produce a single instance in which anAmerican child has been made ill by the lead in old bookillustrations—not surprisingly, since unlike poorly maintained wallpaint, book pigments do not tend to flake off in large lead-laden chipsfor toddlers to put into their mouths.