CNN is carrying this story on an attempt to block a children\’s book.
Now an Islamic advocacy group has demanded Scholastic Inc. , stop distributing the book, maintaining that it contains inaccurate, offensive and stereotypical references to Muslims.
In the book, Laura, an American student at a private school in London, seeks to avenge her 11-year-old brother\’s murder by 15-year-old Jehran, a Muslim girl who is trying to escape from a forced marriage to a 54-year-old man with three other wives. She had sought the American boy\’s U.S. passport as a means of escape.
\”You get really skeptical when you see a title like that,\” said Alkebsi, who oversees international affairs for the Islamic Institute, a Washington think tank.
CNN is carrying this story on an attempt to block a children\’s book.
Now an Islamic advocacy group has demanded Scholastic Inc. , stop distributing the book, maintaining that it contains inaccurate, offensive and stereotypical references to Muslims.
In the book, Laura, an American student at a private school in London, seeks to avenge her 11-year-old brother\’s murder by 15-year-old Jehran, a Muslim girl who is trying to escape from a forced marriage to a 54-year-old man with three other wives. She had sought the American boy\’s U.S. passport as a means of escape.
\”You get really skeptical when you see a title like that,\” said Alkebsi, who oversees international affairs for the Islamic Institute, a Washington think tank.
Alkebsi of Potomac, Maryland, said the book was extremely stressful for his seventh-grade daughter, Zainab.
\”It hurt my feelings and I was upset and scared what people will think after reading about these stereotypes,\” said the seventh-grader, who read the book based on a reading list provided by her teacher at the Earle B. Wood Middle School, in suburban Rockville, Maryland.
The Montgomery County, Maryland, Public Schools did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday.
Her father sent a copy of the book to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which argues that the novel gives children an unfair picture of Muslim culture, particularly marriage customs. And the group said it contains inaccurate, offensive and stereotypical references to Muslims.
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