MCPHERSON SENTINEL
Janae Pauls | February 8, 2013

A committee recently determined a book taught in a McPherson High School freshman class is indeed appropriate.

“The Glass Castle,” a memoir by Jeanette Walls, was being taught to 95 students in Cindy Marion’s pre-AP English course. It is an account of Walls’ years growing up in poverty with a dysfunctional family. This is the second year Marion has used the book in her course.

Parents spoke to the USD 418 Board of Education in early December with concerns the book might be inappropriate for 14- and 15-yeard-old students, due to foul language and implicit and explicit sexual references. Anti-religious statements also were listed as a concern.

Read on…

Related articles/opinions:
“Parents ask book be removed from classroom“
(McPherson Sentinel | Janae Pauls | December 11, 2012)

“On parents who shield their children [opinion]“
(McPherson Sentinel | December 27, 2012)

“Poll results: ‘The Glass Castle’ [opinion]”
(McPherson Sentinel | February 11, 2013)

WASHINGTON POST
T. Rees Shapiro | February 7, 2013

The book Laura Murphy wants removed from Fairfax County classrooms is considered a modern American classic. It is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a masterpiece of fiction whose author’s 1993 Nobel Prize in literature citation said that she, “in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.”

But Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” Murphy said, depicts scenes of bestiality, gang rape and an infant’s gruesome murder, content she believes could be too intense for teenage readers.

Read on…

STAR-LEDGER
Barry Carter | January 20, 2013

The painting that caused such a ruckus at the Newark Public Library is uncovered again, viewable by all, and the controversy around it gone.

You may remember a column last month about several staff members up in arms because they didn’t think the art was appropriate. They made such a fuss that it was covered up a day after being hung in the second-floor reference room.

Read on…

Original NDLA IF posting:
December 11, 2012

Recently the library director of Newark Public Library covered up a work of art hanging in the library. Library staff pointed out a portion of the drawing that they consider to be disturbing so it was covered with a piece of cloth.

“Kara Walker, a renowned African-American artist who examines race, gender, sexuality and violence, created the drawing. It depicts the horrors of reconstruction, 20th-century Jim Crowism and the hooded figures of the Ku Klux Klan.”

The drawing includes a white man holding the head of a naked black woman to his groin.

One library employee says, “It can go back where it came from, I really don’t like to see my people like this. We need to see something uplifting and not demeaning.”

On the other hand, the library director acknowledges that, “It evokes man’s inherent ability to be unkind to people. It’s meant to evoke some kind of emotion that says all of these terrible things happened and that we should not be complacent.”

This is the link to the article, which includes an image of the drawing. Take a look to get the full story. Censorship or common decency? What do you think?