Saturday, January 22, 2005
Bad words
Janet Harmon presented a petition with 500 names at the Blue Valley School Board meeting Jan. 10 asking for the removal of 14 books because of what she considers vulgar language, sexual explicitness or violent imagery. The petition would ban the following Pulitzer, PEN, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle award winning literature:
- All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy -- National Book Award, 1992
- Animal Dreams, Barbara Kingsolver -- PEN fiction prize and Edward Abbey Ecofiction Award, 1991
- The Awakening, Kate Chopin -- The 1899 classic
- The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver --American Library Association, 1988
- Beloved, Toni Morrison -- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Beloved, Toni Morrison won the National Book Awards NBF Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and the Nobel Prize for Literature.
- Black Boy, Richard Wright -- Named among the top 25 non-fiction works of the century
- Fallen Angels, Walter Dean Meyers -- Coretta Scott King Author Book Award, 1988
- Hot Zone, Richard Preston -- 42 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou -- Nominated for a National Book Award, 1970
- Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy -- Conroy won a humanitarian award from the National Education Association for The Water is Wide, 1972
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey -- made into an Academy Award-winning movie
- Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison -- National Book Critics Circle Award, 1977
- Stotan, Chris Crutcher -- Best Books for Young Adult Readers American Library Association, 1986; Best of the Best in Young Adult Literature, School Library Journal
- This Boy's Life, Tobias Wolff -- From a PEN/Faulkner award winner
This link http://www.bluevalleyk12.org/Contacts.cfm will take you to a Blue Valley schools web page where you can send e-mail opposed to banning books to Superintendant Tom Trigg and Board of Education members.
