One of the more amusing aspects of the effort to block 7 books from the classroom in District 214 is that according to Pinney, students shouldn’t be reading “The Things They Carried,” but yet they are old enough in a few months to go to war. Slaughterhouse 5 is based on Vonnegut’s experiences as a 22 year old man watching the bombing of Dresden. The Trib does a good job describing why such movements are stupid
And no one swears in the army. Or real life.
Masturbation is another theme Pinney worries about. There really is nothing to worry about, teenagers figure it out before reading a book mentioning it.
Looking at the agenda, and the links from the IFI page, one can look to this page of a group with similar goals to Pinney
Note that they have refused to review any of the Shakespeare works because, it’s different. Really. Sure, for dumb students who can’t figure out what he was talking about. At best Shakespeare is simply better at letting the individual draw inferences with their imagination. Unless you expect students to NOT THINK about what they are reading.
Fascinating selections for books they disapprove:
A Separate Peace
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
Of Mice and Men
Lord of the Flies–a fairly accurate depiction of life in Junior High
In Cold Blood
Hot Zone
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Heart of Darkness
Catcher in the Rye
All the Pretty Horses
To beat a dead horse, the idiots like LaBarbera and others have built up an incredible infrastructure to challenge anything outside of their narrow ridiculous views of the world. These fights aren’t random, they are choreagraphed exercises in wearing down standards.
One funny/sad commentary here is many of these books were taught in the grade school and high school I went to. The years make my memories fuzzy over which was taught where, but I remember reading; A Separate Peace, Of Mice And Men, In Cold Blood, and Catcher in the Rye, among others.
Oh yeah, I went to Catholic Schools, known for their aggressively liberal stances.
“The spirit of this website is to encourage the public schools to help our children develop a love of reading and gain a rigorous literary education through excellent literature choices. ”
Yep, Archie, that is one threatening agenda. I’d just hate for a school board member to ascribe to such a ridiculous credo.