When the School Board of Republic High School in Missouri received a complaint about Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, the school district banned 150 students from reading the book as part of their high school curriculum.
In response, the Vonnegut Library has stepped up and is offering those students a free copy of the novel. Copies are being made available from an anonymous donation, according to io9.
The school board was responding to to a complaint by Missouri University professor Wesley Scroggins, about that book as well Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer.
“This is a book that contains so much profane language, it would make a sailor blush with shame. The “f word” is plastered on almost every other page. The content ranges from naked men and women in cages together so that others can watch them having sex to God telling people that they better not mess with his loser, bum of a son, named Jesus Christ,” Scroggins wrote in his complaint.
The school board voted unanimously to remove both books from class reading lists and from the high school’s library.
That lead to the Vonnegut Library stepping in to defend the students’ First Amendment rights.
“It is shocking and unfortunate that those young adults and citizens would not be considered mature enough to handle the important topics raised by Kurt Vonnegut, a decorated war veteran. Everyone can learn something from his book,” library executive director, Julia Whitehead, told Reuters in a statement.
The library promised it wouldn’t share information of which students took advantage of the offer, saying that it wasn’t asking the students to like the book, but wanted to give them the chance to read it and decide about it for themselves.
Mouldy Squid says
Hurray for the Vonnegut Library. Boo for the school board of Republic Highschool.
Some idiot MLA up here in Alberta tried the same thing with Of Mice and Men several years ago, and was promptly made a fool of. A reporter at the press conference about the proposed banning asked the Honorable Member of the Legislature if he had ever read Of Mice and Men. He replied that he had not and the reporter then asked if perhaps he thought he should read it considering what he was about to introduce a bill banning the book from all public education institutions in the entire provence.
He brought no official bill forward after that press conference.
Lejon from Chandler says
The challenge here is for the school. They simply have to figure out how to remove their heads from their anal orifices. Once they’ve figured that out, they can then take a step back and LEARN that students have minds that need broadening and books that do that are ones that challenge. This is one of those books that does, which should be obvious, because none of the complacent board-members were challenged in any way to read it first.
OK. I’m going to stop before I make myself angry.
Lejon from Chandler says
*sigh* Were Not Challenged in any way… sorry.
Anachronite says
OK please stop saying this novel was banned. Adult content has no place in a SCHOOL library where children can read the book without parental consent. By placing novels with adult content in a SCHOOL library we are putting parenting in the government’s hands instead of in the parents hands where it belongs. Books with adult content are fine for a public library or book store, as long as the librarian or clerk does not allow under age persons to check out or purchase such items. But banning? or burning? hardly. If that kind of thing ever starts happening, we’re all screwed…
Mouldy Squid says
I guess you never went to high school. Slaughterhouse Five, The Wars, Johnny’s Got His Gun, Of Mice and Men and The Catcher in the Rye are, or were, on the reading list for almost every high school I’ve ever heard of.
These are high schoolers, not children. If we cannot use “adult” content to teach young adults, then I suppose we should make sure that they never go outside, watch TV, use the internet or see films. How exactly are the young adults supposed to learn about the adult world if we cannot use “adult” content to teach them?
I suppose you are the sole arbiter of what constitute adult content. If you aren’t then who decides? The state? The Church? The PTA? The Publishers? You might consider Slaughterhouse Five to be appropriate for your teen-ager, but what right do you or anyone else have to tell me what is appropriate for mine? I leave education to the educators, not to foolish parents that think they have to protect their children from anything they don’t like.
Also, your comparison to R rated films is better than you know. If you look at the small print you will see that R rated movies can be seen with adult accompaniment. It is only minors by themselves that cannot (hah) see R rated films. Adult content used with supervision and proper discussion (which is exactly what happens in high school literature courses) is the best tool we have of educating our young adults about being adults.
And the book has been banned. In that school at least. Sure, the kids could seek it out elsewhere, and that is exactly why the Vonnegut Library has offered free copies to any of them that want it.
Summer Brooks says
Anachronite,
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but communities in America have been banning books and music from being purchased by minors — and on occassion, from being purchased at all — since, well, I don’t know if we can pin down a start date for when so many Americans started thinking that the First Amendment was for them and not for their neighbor, and believing that it was the right thing to do. Safe bet to say banning might have started with Mark Twain, when he was still alive.
The list of books on the ALA List of Frequently Challenged and Banned Books is the place to start reading up on how pervasive and widespread this is… they keep track of what books have been challenged to be banned and actually banned, and they do a damned good job. There’s even a Banned Book Week every year to help raise awareness about the disturbing trend of banning books.
Check out the following links… the books on the list will surprise, confuse, and possibly anger you:
Banned Books Week: http://www.ala.org/bbooks (this year, Sep 24-Oct 1, 2011)
About Banned and Challenged Books: http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/aboutbannedbooks/index.cfm
If you want to see the full list of books that were banned between 2004 and 2010, check out the bottom of their free downloads page for the PDF lists.
And for the record, when I was in high school in the 1980s, Slaughterhouse Five was on my English class curriculum. Why was it okay for me to read it in high school, and not okay for high schoolers to read now? It’s not like there was a darker reimagining or a reboot of the book that’s come out since it was first published.
Since the book didn’t change, what changed in American society to make them think they have the right to ban books and movies and music to control what other people (especially teenagers) can learn about the world while still also managing to say they believe in a free and open society? The cognitive dissonance wave set up by that should have caused the heads of entire towns full of people to asplode!
Anachronite says
oh and this is no different than restricting under age children from rated R movies. So stop your whining.
Mouldy Squid says
Right after you stop your condescension.