Cleaning Up The Shelves In Arkansas

GregS* says:

2 interesting bits
Bruce Ritter, who has two children in the Fayetteville schools, says he’s saddened by the community’s reaction to Taylor’s suggestion. Somebody has made decisions about what books are in the school libraries, he says, and parents want a voice in those decisions. He says people make much of the fact that some of the books on Taylor’s list were written by Pulitzer Prize winners and Nobel laureates, “but the same words could have come from Hustler magazine.� He says he can’t quote passages from “Push� in a public forum, “because of the standards of decency that we have adopted. I can’t say these words but our children can read them.� and

Taylor has posted provocative excerpts from books on a website. (See page 14.) These passages have been taken out of context, de Noble says. He has read some of the books on Taylor’s list — the whole books — and “They’re not pornographic or obscene. They are frank, sometimes.� He mentions “Push,� a novel by an author called Sapphire that is much cited by those who want restrictions on books. It’s about a black girl who is sexually abused by both parents, has two children by her father, and eventually struggles through to a better life. “Push� is not pornography, de Noble says, but “the story of a young woman who never had the opportunity to be a child.�

…the Oprahfication of kids. A lot of kids don’t get the chance to be kids. How many are raped by both parents? Why does it have to be the aboslute worst possible situation?

GregS* says:

Re:2 interesting bits
“These books show victims a way out!”

Yes I’m sure a lot do. Much like Oprah’s favorite. In fact much like all of literature. Once up a time a person faced a great challenge. The person conquered the challenge. The end. What seperates the wheat from the chaff is that word you chose to use, ‘victims’. There is a sadistic part of some authors to make the character an uber-victim, to suffer, to suffer, to suffer some more and then at last, through some small shift in the sunlight, the victim suddenly sees the world differently and they are free from their travails. Meanwhile the reader as masochist walks a very unpleasant mile in the characters shoes lapping up the pain and suffering as if it somehow gives them some true connection to victims of the real world and the reader knows that the world would be right if everyone could just join Oprah’s book club.