The Pantagraph reports that two complaints have been lodged against John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” assigned to a sophomore English class in Normal, IL. Connie Tripp, parent of a student at Normal Community High School, has called for the removal of the book on the grounds that it “contains racial slurs, profanity and violence.” Her daughter, a Black student, said that she felt degraded by the book and spent several weeks in the library while the class discussed the book. The family rejected the school’s alternative offering, “The Pearl,” also by Steinbeck.
The Pantagraph reports that two complaints have been lodged against John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” assigned to a sophomore English class in Normal, IL. Connie Tripp, parent of a student at Normal Community High School, has called for the removal of the book on the grounds that it “contains racial slurs, profanity and violence.” Her daughter, a Black student, said that she felt degraded by the book and spent several weeks in the library while the class discussed the book. The family rejected the school’s alternative offering, “The Pearl,” also by Steinbeck.
School board members argued the matter at a meeting attended by a majority of supporters for the book’s removal. Tripp and her daughter have also called for the removal of other titles, including “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Two committees are working on responses to the challenges.
Having too much time on their hands
I studied the works of Steinbeck, Twain, Hemingway, etc., in high school & college and I’m not scarred for life because someone used a few naughty words. What’s the big deal? They’re trying to shelter these kids from profanity, violence and racial slurs, but it’s everywhere around us. At least when it’s contained in a book, it’s pretty innocuous. When it’s on television or in real life, it’s totally in-your-face. I think these people have way too much time on their hands. They should go volunteer somewhere like the Humane Society or the Red Cross. Or better yet, why don’t they volunteer to black out all the naughty words in every book in every school, then the kids will have the experience of reading the classics, sans the offensive verbage. Should be pretty safe there, and should keep them busy for awhile. Sheesh.
The Real banned books
Around and About: Fascism in the Library
Sandy Berman Says:
“The most effectively “banned books” in America are not the ‘challenged”, invariably mainstream titles widely publicized by the American Library Association.
Instead, they’re the works produced by the diverse, independent and unorthodox presses listed in APBNA.
No book burning zealot has the chance to “challenge” the presence of alternative press materials on library shelves, simply because too many such volumes aren’t there in the first place.
They’re not selected, not bought, not catalogued, not loaned, not displayed.
But it doesn’t need to be that way.
The profession can stop murdering, its own noble Library Bill of Rights by actively identifying and collecting the varied, enlightening and sometimes unsettling stuff issued by non-corporate publishers.”
MATCH: A Journal of Ethical Anarchism
Number 98
Summer 2002 p.18