You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups.
That’s a photo of my grandson Quentin in the Greenspun Middle School library in Henderson, Nevada. While my wife and I were visiting our kids and grandkids during Thanksgiving week, his school hosted a grandparents’ day. When we walked by the library I asked if we could go in, and Quentin said sure. I wanted to check the shelves for banned books, and here Quentin is holding up a copy of one of the most frequently challenged and banned books on school reading lists and library shelves today. Yay, Greenspun Middle School!
We had a nice chat with the school librarian, Andy S_____, who is well aware of which books in his collection have been repeatedly challenged or banned, and who sends kids home with permission slips for parents to sign if, in his judgement, parents might object to their child checking out particular books. It’s case by case, not a blanket policy, and that seems sensible to me. Quentin could have checked out To Kill a Mockingbird without a signed permission slip, for example. We tried to talk him into it, but right now his interests lie elsewhere (you may have heard of a computer game called Minecraft). By the way, we’re giving him a banned YA book for Christmas … I won’t say which one in case he reads this post, but it’s a good one.
YCRT! News Roundup
Highland Park High backs down; Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain is back on a high school class reading list in a Dallas, Texas suburb. This is one of many school book banning flareups where parents and some administrators have advocated “red flagging” any and all controversial books, and the battle is by no means over.
Another un-banning, this time in Riverside, California: John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars is back on school library shelves. Let me emphasize that: the original ban was not over the inclusion of the popular YA novel on a class reading list; the ban was over its mere presence in school libraries.
I have my doubts about this story, which asserts that a high school teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was fired because one of her students turned in a creative writing story about Jesus dealing pot.
Here’s a fascinating story about American censorship of Japanese literature and film during the occupation following the end of WWII. What did we try to expunge? The existence of “comfort women” and prostitution.
America must “fix free speech” with censorship. Say what?
A school board member is challenging the health care curriculum at a Delaware high school. His issue? Any mention of homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism, STDs, HIV, or birth control. Just another “free speech fixer” at work.