Parents Seek To Have 'The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian' Banned From 9th Grade Reading List

Chicago Tribune:

Some parents of incoming freshmen at Antioch High School want an assigned summer reading book pulled from the school's shelves and the curriculum because it uses foul, racist language and describes sexual acts.

Read the whole story: Chicago Tribune

Comments

[Ray46]

07:38 PM on 06/22/2009

Even the kids that ride the short bus know and use all these words well before they they enter high school.

[llisa]

05:59 PM on 06/22/2009

This is not a book that would scar the minds of incoming high school freshmen. It was actually written for an even younger age group.

As a parent and former teacher, I think these parents are a bit overprotective, and probably naive. If they think their children have never heard the language used in the book, they are kidding themselves.

Since another book is available to substitute for this one, the protesting parents have no case anyway.

[Ponderus]

05:27 PM on 06/22/2009

Bluenosery still reigns supreme in Puritan America.

It's amazing what little confidence these parents show in their children. Does this backward woman really think that letting her son read the book will drag him to the dark side? If a book causes a child to throw over everything they've learned, then the fault is with the parenting, not the book.

[Jaywalkker]

12:29 PM on 06/22/2009

Sometimes my dad would tell me to turn off a show if it were too violent or had too many expletives. Which didn't make much of a difference because the sailor's script he followed doing any home repair/maintenance project was much more colorful and descriptive than the allotment allowed by the FCC on primetime.

[slarabee]

12:26 PM on 06/22/2009

The problem with this story is that it is in a main stream paper and so there are no examples of the alleged foul language etc... so I have no way to gauge whether is it is appropriate or not so this was a waste of my time to read.

I am not at all for "banning" books but then I do not want my 13 year old daughter reading the Kama Sutra just yet either.

[Jaywalkker]

01:13 PM on 06/22/2009

Is she sexting? does she know anyone who does or has? Run a keylogger on the family computer and see what your daughter gets up too. The book may be tame by comparison.

Granted the height of technology for me in my childhood was the transition from Atari 2600/5200 to the NES - but even w/out ubiquitous internet, my friends and I were still able to get our hands on porn. We swore like prison inmates. Got the CDs we wanted Explicit Lyrics Warning be danged. Everyone had access to a VCR and who knows what kind of violent/sexual movie collections.

My point is, banning a book that frames "foulness" in a relatable context is the most counterproductive thing possible, because that same "foulness" already besieges youth or is actively engaged in by them, with absolutely no frame of reference.

[RightWingMarine]

02:59 PM on 06/22/2009

I concur; while I have not read the book itself I read several reviews and I believe banning this book would serve no purpose. Parents that believe their teenage children don't swear and live to be chaste are usually naive. The thrust of this book, from what I've read of it, is to teach children how to deal with difficult situations and that when they use language as vile as we did when we were teens to not do so around authority figures.

Sadly the book was written with a grade level of 7, not 9, in mind and the reviews describe the book as having so many pictures that one could discern what was happening in the story without ever actually reading a word. While the book may have a subject children would be well served to learn apparently the teachers in this district don't think that much of their charges.

[slarabee]

08:35 PM on 06/22/2009

I agree with both of you to an extent. I just would want to know for sure what was in the book that these people are objecting too before I defend the book. That said I always lean away from banning books. Censorship is a bad thing, no doubt about it.