I bet if it were graphic gay sex it'd be ok.
This is a board member. She certainly has a right to express her opinion about books that she doesn't think rise up to the level of quality reading for high-schoolers.
And that is not "book-burning." It is what a board member is supposed to do.
The Botany of Desire? How on earth can someone find a history of plants offensive?
Goodness, let's not expose students to any *ideas* in school.
And the name of the book is of course: The Holy Bible
The reason cited if you choose to speak to the librarian will be "Seperation of Church and State".
Meanwhile copies of the mormon bible and the koran are freely available upon request.
Wha tis it about freedom people hate? Don't read the books if you don't like them. Banning is never an answer to anything.
Based on some of the high school students I have met recently, I would say that it is more important to get them to read books, any books, than to spend so much time criticizing certain books that may be in school libraries.
Somebody just like this councilwoman banned Huck Finn, and more importantly, The Little Engine That Could. So where do we redraw the line that was made the day Larry Flynt won and we all lost?
THIS IS ONE BOARD MEMBER AT ONE HIGH SCHOOL SAYING SHE DOES NOT LIKE THE BOOKS IN THE CURRICULUM. VOICING OPINIONS ABOUT THIS IS HER JOB.
DO NOT KNEE-JERK. THIS IS NOT GOVERNMENT BANNING OR CENSORSHIP.
Billy Pilgrim and Tralfamadorian bump
These aren't 5 year olds. These are teenagers on the cusp of becoming adults. People like this school board official should stop trying to mind control them and let the students engage in ideas, otherwise their first steps into the real world will be a disaster.
Hehe, the comments should be amusing on this thread.
Aw....man....not this nonsense again.
But, she only read the "good" parts, I see.
I can't believe we're still banning books. You think these book banners realize there's an internet out there? lol
They forgot the koran.
When a reading list is established, somebody decides what books will be on it, and by definition what books will be left off. If there are 50 books on the list, that means many thousands or millions of books have been "censored."
Somehow, once a book gets onto the list it becomes untouchable, with nobody (not even a school board member!) allowed to venture an opinion that a particular book might not be appropriate and should be considered for replacement by some other book.
In actual fact, of course, this generally only applies to books criticized for sexual content, especially from a conservative point of view.
Books critical of homosexuality or trans-genderism never get on the list in the first place, so there can be no controversy over their removal.
'Isn't there ... a higher level?
Of course there is, but apparently the public school bureaucrats have decided our children don't deserve it.
And banning books has always worked so well in the past....
I mean it's not like the school district is trying to put the Bible in the classroom or anything.
Silent Spring
Communist Manifesto
Population Bomb
Origin of the Species
Fahrenheit 9/11
The Koran
Protocols of the Elders of Zion....
Like I say, I wouldn't BAN any of those, but there should probably be warning labels on them.
Bookmark
It is pretty stupid, though, to object to books based on "inappropriate" passages rather than on their literary merit or suitability for study and analysis. And of course this idiot proudly proclaimed she only read the "dirty bits". I'd be embarassed to admit I objected to a book I hadn't even read.
On that note, the only book listed that I can remember reading is Slaughterhouse - Five. It was assigned reading in AP English at my private, Christian high school. If the powers that be there didn't object to it, I can't imagine anyone having any problems with the content. It's not very good, so I wouldn't have a problem with it being replaced by one of the many titles more worthy of reading and study, but there's certainly nothing in it that has to be hidden from a high school senior.
ping
School systems are not obliged to provide or even tolerate any given book.
I'm for banning A Separate Peace (for boring us youth with pedestrian writing), Walden (for FRAUD, as Thoreau merely lived in the "woods" by his mother's house and had her cook for him on a daily basis), and ANYTHING by Steinbeck (the most overrated American writer after affirmative action poster girl Toni Morrison).
I believe that the US Supreme Court has ruled that school boards cannot simply "ban books." They must have established procedures for book evaluation and procurement and they must follow these procedures.
They're getting mine over my dead body.