Some librarians dispute law on lead in children's books

"But a new federal law banning more than minute levels of lead in most products intended for children 12 or younger — and a federal agency's interpretation of the law — prompted at least two libraries last month to pull children's books printed before 1986 from their shelves."

"We're talking about tens of millions of copies of children's books that are perfectly safe. I wish a reasonable, rational person would just say, 'This is stupid. What are we doing?"' said Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the American Library Association's Washington office."

"A CPSC spokesman told The Associated Press in a recent interview that until more testing is done, the nation's more than 116,000 public and school libraries should take steps to ensure that children are kept away from books printed before 1986."