Saturday, December 17, 2005
Inappropriate
Amid protests from such groups as the Los Angeles-based Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, Carroll County Superintendent Charles I. Ecker is reconsidering his decision to ban The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things and could announce his decision soon, according to Gina Davis of the Baltimore Sun.
Ecker, after hearing complaints from some parents and students, ordered school librarians in mid-October to remove all copies of Carolyn Mackler's book about an overweight 15-year-old girl struggling to fit in at school and with her high-achieving family. He said he found the book's use of profanity and sexual references inappropriate.RSR believes that all books worth their salt are provocative and dangerous. Any decent book for young people has, at a minimum, the duty to make parents uncomfortable. It goes without saying that books about fat people are beyond the pale. Perhaps the various authorities, in their infinite wisdom should just ban them all.
