AZCentral has this report on a book that went too far.
For Dysart Unified School District, the answer is easy: you pull the book off the library shelves when it has explicit sexual content and doesn\’t advance the goals of the district, which includes promoting family values.
So Detour for Emmy by Marilyn Reynolds came off the shelves of Dysart elementary schools when a mother of two girls, sixth- and seventh-graders, complained.
Dysart Superintendent Margo Seck said she has pulled the entire \”True-to-Life Series from Hamilton High\” until officials have time to read the series.
AZCentral has this report on a book that went too far.
For Dysart Unified School District, the answer is easy: you pull the book off the library shelves when it has explicit sexual content and doesn\’t advance the goals of the district, which includes promoting family values.
So Detour for Emmy by Marilyn Reynolds came off the shelves of Dysart elementary schools when a mother of two girls, sixth- and seventh-graders, complained.
Dysart Superintendent Margo Seck said she has pulled the entire \”True-to-Life Series from Hamilton High\” until officials have time to read the series. \”I take a real conservative approach,\” Seck said. \”I look at it from the point of view, would I want my child to have access to this type of material. And no, I would not.\”
The book, published in 1993, deals with Emmy, a straight A student, soccer star and lead soprano in the choir. She is a member of a dysfunctional family who has protected sex with her boyfriend, except for one night.
The sex act that night is graphically described.
Emmy becomes pregnant, considers abortion, but decides to have the baby.
Reynolds offered no apologies for her books. They deal with issues faced by youth today, she said.
\”I try to tell a realistic story,\” Reynolds, who lives in Gold River, Calif., said. \”She (Emmy) gets pregnant and she doesn\’t do it by breathing.\”
Reynolds, a 64-year-old retired teacher, taught English in an alternative high school in Los Angeles County. She said she didn\’t see any books that accurately reflected the lives of many high school students, especially those dealing with issues such as teen pregnancy.
She acknowledges that the book contains portions that are offensive to some, but watering down the story would be selling the readers short, she said.
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