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Fun Foibles of Book Banning
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Courtesy of Morons.Org:
Fun Foibles in the World of Book Banning
Last week a parent in Texas decided he wanted a book banned from the school curriculum. Turns out he should have read it first...
It's a story familiar to us all. Child assigned a book to read. Child takes book home. Parent finds out about objectionable content in book. Parent seeks to have book banned.
This story is little different. Diana Verm, a student at Caney Creek High School in Houston, Texas was assigned a book to read. She was bothered by some of the language in it, so she brought her concerns to her father, Alton. Her father concurred (though he never read the book), and so last week he filed a "Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials" with the school district to have the book removed from the curriculum.
Turns out the Verms should have read the book first, and maybe paid attention to the date. You see, last week was Banned Books Week, a week in which the ALA celebrates the first amendment and cautions against the dangers of banning books. As though that weren't amusing enough, this particular book: Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.
Fahrenheit 451 is a classic novel. You probably read it yourself in school; I know I did. In it, Bradbury paints a dystopian future, one in which the job of a fireman is not to put out fires, but rather to set them in order to burn books, as all books have been banned.
That's right. Alton Verm chose Banned Books Week to seek the banning of a book, the major theme of which is the problems to be faced by a society when access to literature and similarly recorded knowledge is restricted or entirely curtailed. Oh, incidentally, the school has a policy allowing students to read a different book with similar themes if they find the content objectionable, an opportunity our Diana took full advantage of.
Fun Foibles in the World of Book Banning
Last week a parent in Texas decided he wanted a book banned from the school curriculum. Turns out he should have read it first...
It's a story familiar to us all. Child assigned a book to read. Child takes book home. Parent finds out about objectionable content in book. Parent seeks to have book banned.
This story is little different. Diana Verm, a student at Caney Creek High School in Houston, Texas was assigned a book to read. She was bothered by some of the language in it, so she brought her concerns to her father, Alton. Her father concurred (though he never read the book), and so last week he filed a "Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials" with the school district to have the book removed from the curriculum.
Turns out the Verms should have read the book first, and maybe paid attention to the date. You see, last week was Banned Books Week, a week in which the ALA celebrates the first amendment and cautions against the dangers of banning books. As though that weren't amusing enough, this particular book: Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.
Fahrenheit 451 is a classic novel. You probably read it yourself in school; I know I did. In it, Bradbury paints a dystopian future, one in which the job of a fireman is not to put out fires, but rather to set them in order to burn books, as all books have been banned.
That's right. Alton Verm chose Banned Books Week to seek the banning of a book, the major theme of which is the problems to be faced by a society when access to literature and similarly recorded knowledge is restricted or entirely curtailed. Oh, incidentally, the school has a policy allowing students to read a different book with similar themes if they find the content objectionable, an opportunity our Diana took full advantage of.
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