F'fax County Schools Won't Ban Book with Bestiality

[belimom]

bbm

You talked me into it. As a parent to a child in the AAP program (elem/middle school) in this same district (F'fax County), I want to know what my child will be reading in the AP program in high school. I can handle it. And, then I'll post back.

FYI, I'm pretty conservative with my choice of reading materials, so I'm anxious to see exactly what's in this book.

Well, believe it or not, I just finished it. The whole thing... Thanks for 'gently' recommending that it should be read before forming an opinion, AnaTeresa.

--- Spoiler Alert----

1) bestiality: was mentioned a few times but not described in detail at all, which was the impression that I got from the F'fax mother's objection (that it would be like some trashy romance novel, but insert the bestiality). It was really not the focus of the book in any way, shape, or form.

2) gang rape/rape: it was talked about also. But again, not described in much detail. Not the focus of the book but played a more prominent role than bestiality by far - used to describe how badly the black people of that day were treated.

3) Beloved, the child/ghost: while this is the name of the book, and the book centers a great deal around her death, her ghost that haunted the home, and then finally her 'reappearance' in the flesh as a woman, I still get the feeling that the book was not about Beloved. Beloved's haunting of the house and her appearing physically were a little freaky, but again, nothing a mature teen or adult can't handle.

4) Overall impression: the book, for me, was more about the inhumane treatment of the blacks of that day/time and the effect it had on their lives, culminating in the decision by Sethe to kill her children (she only succeeded in killing one) rather than have them be taken back to the same home/life/mistreatment that she had so desperately escaped --- to be compared to and thought of as nothing more than an animal, an asset, to be sold, abused, beaten, chained, even roasted alive/eaten.

Seriously?!? There is all of ^^this ^^ in there - all of this pain, this suffering, this crazy-making - and someone latches onto the few mentions of bestiality? It's hard to believe someone smart enough to get through law school totally missed the point of this book. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. The impression that I am left with now, just minutes after finishing this book, is not about the bestiality or rape or even the murder of one's own child (none of which were described in as much graphic detail as I've read in other books or in the newspaper or CNN.com). But the Bigger Picture of it all put together, the biography of Sethe and Baby Suggs and Denver and Paul D and all the others - and a deep sadness for how blacks were treated back then and what they had to do to simply survive. Those difficult situations where good/bad may not be simply black/white and where fine and good people are pushed to doing terrible things (but was it terrible...?).

Again, I am very conservative about what I read - and about what my kids read/watch. This is not anything that would bother me to have a 17/18-yr-old child read. Not at all.

(However, I didn't enjoy the book, but not because of the content. It's a style of writing that is hard for me to follow or to get into. I completed it b/c I wanted to not only get through it to form my own opinion but also to find out what happened to the characters.)

 

[IzzyBlanche]

If you have a copy in front of you, you could just tell us. It's a long book (and entirely worth it).

Aw Nova, I was just teasing you a bit. My copy is in the back of a cabinet somewhere behind a pile of other books, but Amazon lists it at 464 pages.

And yes, it's well worth the read. I read it for the second time when I lived in NYC and I was so absorbed in it I nearly rode the subway right past my stop.

I enjoyed the Broadway production too, with Lois Smith as Ma Joad and Gary Sinise as Tom Joad.

 

[AnaTeresa]

Well, believe it or not, I just finished it. The whole thing... Thanks for 'gently' recommending that it should be read before forming an opinion, AnaTeresa.

--- Spoiler Alert----

1) bestiality: was mentioned a few times but not described in detail at all, which was the impression that I got from the F'fax mother's objection (that it would be like some trashy romance novel, but insert the bestiality). It was really not the focus of the book in any way, shape, or form.

2) gang rape/rape: it was talked about also. But again, not described in much detail. Not the focus of the book but played a more prominent role than bestiality by far - used to describe how badly the black people of that day were treated.

3) Beloved, the child/ghost: while this is the name of the book, and the book centers a great deal around her death, her ghost that haunted the home, and then finally her 'reappearance' in the flesh as a woman, I still get the feeling that the book was not about Beloved. Beloved's haunting of the house and her appearing physically were a little freaky, but again, nothing a mature teen or adult can't handle.

4) Overall impression: the book, for me, was more about the inhumane treatment of the blacks of that day/time and the effect it had on their lives, culminating in the decision by Sethe to kill her children (she only succeeded in killing one) rather than have them be taken back to the same home/life/mistreatment that she had so desperately escaped --- to be compared to and thought of as nothing more than an animal, an asset, to be sold, abused, beaten, chained, even roasted alive/eaten.

Seriously?!? There is all of ^^this ^^ in there - all of this pain, this suffering, this crazy-making - and someone latches onto the few mentions of bestiality? It's hard to believe someone smart enough to get through law school totally missed the point of this book. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. The impression that I am left with now, just minutes after finishing this book, is not about the bestiality or rape or even the murder of one's own child (none of which were described in as much graphic detail as I've read in other books or in the newspaper or CNN.com). But the Bigger Picture of it all put together, the biography of Sethe and Baby Suggs and Denver and Paul D and all the others - and a deep sadness for how blacks were treated back then and what they had to do to simply survive. Those difficult situations where good/bad may not be simply black/white and where fine and good people are pushed to doing terrible things (but was it terrible...?).

Again, I am very conservative about what I read - and about what my kids read/watch. This is not anything that would bother me to have a 17/18-yr-old child read. Not at all.

(However, I didn't enjoy the book, but not because of the content. It's a style of writing that is hard for me to follow or to get into. I completed it b/c I wanted to not only get through it to form my own opinion but also to find out what happened to the characters.)

I'm glad you read it! I think that discussion and criticism of books can be a great thing, and really help push people to decide if a work has merit, or reevaluate certain ideas that they hold. Stylistically, Beloved isn't my favorite. But I understand why it's assigned to AP students, just as Camus is assigned. It's meant to challenge you as a reader. Like you said, for her to focus on the bestiality aspect is so narrowly focused - she's completely missing the big picture about the book.

 

[Donjeta]

From the same mindset : A parent wants Anne Frank's diary banned because it's pornographic:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...y-censored-daughters-school-reading-list.html

 

[Donjeta]

Seriously?!? There is all of ^^this ^^ in there - all of this pain, this suffering, this crazy-making - and someone latches onto the few mentions of bestiality? It's hard to believe someone smart enough to get through law school totally missed the point of this book. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.

'It's pretty graphic, and it's pretty pornographic for seventh-grade boys and girls to be reading,' Horalek told the Detroit's Fox affiliate. 'It's inappropriate for a teacher to be giving this material out to the kids when its really the parents' job to give the students this information.'
....
The specific passages that upset Horalek's daughter involve Frank's discovery of her vagina.

'There are little folds of skin all over the place, you can hardly find it,' the passage reads. 'The little hole underneath is so terribly small that I simply can't imagine how a man can get in there, let alone how a whole baby can get out!'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ghters-school-reading-list.html#ixzz2S1g6wF6c

I had the same reaction about a different book. Anne Frank's diary is+ an utterly disturbing book about an extremely chilling and violent era in the recent history of mankind. It's about a young girl forced to hide in a house for two years because her people are being exterminated in a genocide of massive proportions.

It is being objected as inappropriate for seventh graders to because this doomed teenager expressed some rudimentary knowledge of her own anatomy and the fact that making babies involves said anatomy somehow. She never got around to making babies because she DIED at a CONCENTRATION CAMP. But the reaso seventh graders may be upset about the book is that they may find out that women have vaginas and babies are delivered through them.

Really...

This is just JMO but if some seventh grader has been so sheltered that they freak out hearing that people have genitalia they totally need to read this book and many others that are way more explicit. With pictures. Sheesh. Kids shouldn't be allowed pass the six first grades if all they've learned about biology is that babies are brought by different varieties of storks.

 

[Perodicticus potto]

Found the reference to beastiality. On page 10 it states the black male slaves raped calves.

... Man, you'd have to work really hard to be outraged by that.

Also: This woman's son is in a college-level course, but he 1) has nightmares over a book, and 2) tells his mommy so she can fix it for him? Yeeesh.

 

[Donjeta]

Despite the number of complaints against it, "The Diary of Anne Frank" is not one of the top ten books banned in US schools. ALA's list, from 1990-1999, does though include other surprising classics:

Scary Stories (Series), by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy's Roommate, by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
Forever, by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
Heather Has Two Mommies, by Leslea Newman
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger



Additionally, forty-two of Radcliffe Publishing Course's top 100 novels of the 20th century have been challenged at schools coast to coast, and nine of the top 10 have been banned at some point, including seminal texts like "The Great Gatsby," "The Grapes of Wrath" and "To Kill a Mocking Bird."

http://www.thenation.com/blog/anne-franks-diary-too-explicit-school

Ten most farfetched (silliest, irrational, illogical) reasons to ban a book.

“Encourages children to break dishes so they won’t have to dry them.” ( A Light in the Attic, by Shel Silverstien)
“It caused a wave of rapes.” ( Arabian Nights, or Thousand and One Nights, anonymous)
“If there is a possibility that something might be controversial, then why not eliminate it?” ( Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown)
“Tarzan was ‘living in sin’ with Jane.” ( Tarzan, by Edgar Rice Burroughs)
“It is a real ‘downer.’” ( Diary of Anne Frank, by Anne Frank)
“The basket carried by Little Red Riding Hood contained a bottle of wine, which condones the use of alcohol.” ( Little Red Riding Hood, by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm K. Grimm)
“One bunny is white and the other is black and this ‘brainwashes’ readers into accepting miscegenation.” ( The Rabbit’s Wedding, by Garth Williams)
“It is a religious book and public funds should not be used to purchase religious books.” ( Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, by Walter A. Elwell, ed.)
“A female dog is called a *****.” ( My Friend Flicka, by Mary O’Hara)
“An unofficial version of the story of Noah’s Ark will confuse children.” ( Many Waters, by Madeleine C. L’Engle)

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/ideasandresources/display_ideas

I see WS autoedited my quote but the word replaced by the asterisks is, well, a word for a female dog.

 

[Nova]

I just did some more research, and it's not uncommon for this book to be on high school required reading lists. Especially AP classes.

Exactly. And once again, as we have discussed in previous threads, AP classes are COLLEGE-LEVEL COURSES and no different from enrolling in a literature course at the local community college.

If there was an error here, it was that the claimant didn't know her son well enough to know he wasn't mature enough to handle college material.

But I'm skeptical: any teen with access to the internet can see bestiality and much worse, in living color.

On a personal note, I taught 18-year-old college freshmen and women for years and never once thought about whether a work was "too intense" for them to handle. If you can't stand the heat, don't go to college.

 

[Nova]

ANYONE who hasn't read Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is culturally illiterate. I can't even remember what in the book would cause a parent concern.

 

[Perodicticus potto]

ANYONE who hasn't read Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is culturally illiterate. I can't even remember what in the book would cause a parent concern.

I assume it's the part where Angelou gets raped by her stepfather (or whatever he was).

 

[Nova]

I assume it's the part where Angelou gets raped by her stepfather (or whatever he was).

Funny. That's not what I took away from the book, which I read 35 years ago. I do remember it now that you remind me.

Don't we teach children about "bad touch" in elementary school?

 

[RoseRed]

The "Dumbing " down of morals in the USA. Yep!!!!!

 

[Gardenlady]

Dumbing down? The incident in question happened in the moral climate of 150+ years ago. I'd say that climate was the moral outrage, not reading a passing reference to it in a book today.

I don't get it. How is reading a reference to something worse than the act itself?