More than 500 northwest suburban residents turned out Thursday night for a long and impassioned debate on a proposal to remove nine books from a high school district’s reading list, which some said was an attempt at censorship but others supported as an effort to protect students from smut.
More at chicagotribune.com
Update: 05/26 15:05 GMT by B : Free “Freakonomics” for District 214 Students: The authors are offering up free copies to students in the District.
its for the parents
“They pick out the things that offend them, like individual words, situations and sexual incidents,” Krug said. “They have a right to do it, and that’s fine. But when they attempt to remove materials so no one has the choice to read them or not, then we take offense. Because what they’re doing is saying, `I know what’s good for my children and your children,’ and that’s not their right.”
Well, I take offense at people lying. Its a question of what reading is required, not what is available. That these books are required is because what Krug is saying is: “I know what’s good for my children and your children.”
What a terrific commentary!
I’m still pondering doing some PoD books, for cases where I know the potential market can’t justify approaching a regular publisher, and one issue was what service to use. Your detailed discussion of “life with Lulu” is likely to steer me in that direction. Hope your book does well!
Fedex Kinko’s?
Right now Fedex Kinko’s has been serving my purposes in getting things printed and bound. It does not go as far as iUniverse but I am not at that point yet. I can only manage short stories that end up growing over time into something that should otherwise be serialized. I just produce so much in terms of documents that, rather than buy yet another binder that gets filled with more than a single document, Fedex Kinko’s is usable.
Uploading works of fiction for printing can be problematical as Fedex Kinko’s tries to be a little helpful once humans become involved in the process on their end. So far I have to figure out how to work through that. Their software is not the best thing that I have found yet for remotely publishing straight from my desktop on Lake Erie’s south shore…but that does not mean I will not try!
Re:its for the parents
GregS — the quote from Judith Krug that you chose to pull out of context is talking about censorship in general, and the organization “Parents Against Bad Books in Schools” in particular, NOT this incident.
PABBIS most definitely does have the stated goal of removing books from schools. Do a little research if you don’t believe me (your local library can help you with that). I’m curious — did you not comprehend the newspaper article or did you comprehend it and decide to distort what it said anyway? I guess I’m wondering whether you’re functionally illiterate or a liar.
Re:its for the parents
Oh for Chris’ sake, what a load of bovine excrement.
Get with the program, Mr. McClay. There is nothing that cannot be found offensive by someone, somewhere. Where’s Waldo is pornography. Alphabet primers are satanic and occultistic. It doesn’t make any difference what you choose for a required reading list, you’re going to have something somebody is going to bitch about.
Let’s play a little game and distort one of Dr. Seuss’s perennial favorites, shall we?
Green Eggs and Ham: The story of a peaceable vegan who is minding his own business when an apparent home invader intrudes on his privacy. When the vegan objects to the presence of this intruder, said intruder engages on a program of criminal stalking and harrassment, taunting the vegan with the stolen products of enslaved animals. In an effort to maintain his principles the vegan flees from this stalker, who drives the hapless victim before him into increasingly hazardous situations. (And inflicting considerable property damage on a motor vehicle, a train, and a freighter in the bargain, while traumatizing a series of innocent animals that are dragged along for the ride.) In the end, tormented beyond endurance, the vegan capitulates and devours the stolen products in an effort to protect what is left of his sanity. In true parasitic fashion, the murderous meat industry twists the final scene into pro-murder propaganda by having the victimized, tormented vegan say that he really likes eating meat.
Re:its for the parents
Krug’s quote is in this article and I have to assume that this is how she chose to respond to this issue. My statement stands.
I’m aware of PABBIS and their views. I don’t have a problem with pulling a book from a school. But that’s not the issue in this case.
Re:its for the parents
Greg. Two words…home school.
Re:its for the parents
I’m for home schooling but 1. state’s like California actually try and punish home schoolers and 2. I’m guessing, based on personal experience, but half or more of a town’s budget (i.e. what gets payed in property taxes) goes to the school. That’s a lot of moola for something you don’t get any benefit from or worse have to fight on a daily basis.
books are honors/AP class
Unless I’ve misread it, the books in question are for honors English and AP English classes according to the article. I can’t comment on the honors English but for the AP students, the ones I’ve known tend to be high caliber students in many regards and if they want to take the exam at the end of the year and possibly earn college credit, they probably need to read those books (although I don’t know about Freakonomics–it’s kind of new–but I don’t see what the big deal is–it just makes you think a little). I guess if you don’t want your kid reading adult level literature, don’t allow them to sign up for AP English. Maybe an English teacher can comment better than I can on this.