Comments | gsa_lj: Crazy dad modern book burner

tko_ak in gsa_lj

Crazy dad modern book burner

Oct 07, 2009 17:00

Ok, that's taking some creative license, but the idea is the same: a Virginia father has freaked the hell out because his 16-year-old son brought home the novel "Perks of Being a Wallflower" from school. Apparently the book centers around a boy who is a freshman in high school, and explores issues like homosexuality and drugs ( Read more... )

censorship, absurd, teenage sexuality, parents, high school

Comments 10

paper_crystals October 8 2009, 01:06:32 UTC

From what I can tell (having read the book recently) Perks of Being a Wallflower is practically the definition of a high school book.

tko_ak October 8 2009, 01:21:58 UTC

What does it discuss of homosexuality? The father made it sound like it was explicit, or a major theme. Which I have a difficult time believing, but I haven't read the book so I don't know.

paper_crystals October 8 2009, 01:28:08 UTC

One of the football players has an affair with the protagonist's friends. The book mentions that they were caught in bed together by the football player's father which is why they broke up and don't speak to each other. Their affair runs through most of the book.

There are a couple of scenes where the protagonist touches a woman's breasts which as sexually explicit as the book gets as I remember.

The book is really about the protagonist's process of growing up and not really knowing how to talk to anyone but watching everyone.

(The comment has been removed)

Thread 5

mizzoumark October 8 2009, 06:05:49 UTC

Welcome to the world of censorship. This guy's opinion is pretty standard among people like him. "I don't like the book, so no one should like the book, and anyone who likes the book is nothing but a pervert! No one should ever read any books that I don't approve of ( ... )

FOX Too gleef October 8 2009, 17:08:14 UTC

It's not just the father's twisted opinion. The father didn't write the headline for the article, note that FOX describes the book as an "Explicit 'Banned Book'", when it's only a banned book in the sense that it made the top 10 of the ALA's list of 10 most frequently challenged books of 2008, as part of their Banned and Challenged books project, not that the book was illegal or even "banned" from the particular school.

Nor is it especially explicit, the end of Lord of the Flies contains far more explicit and disturbing material for young minds, and I like the idea that it's read in high schools. I read Brave New World in high school, that's got some pretty explicit sexual material right there, strikes me as more explicit than any excerpts I've read of Wallflower.

Speaking of explicit sexual material:Lot left Zoar and went into the mountains to live with his two daughters; he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his daughters ( ... )

Re: FOX Too tko_ak October 9 2009, 03:05:31 UTC

I don't think it's fair to slam Fox because they reported it. I read the entire article and thought it was fair, even though I think this Dad is crazy. They might decide to cover it because more of their readers/viewers are interested in the topic (or sympathetic with the father), but I don't think the reporting was poor.

Re: FOX Too gleef October 9 2009, 07:00:01 UTC

I don't think it's fair to slam Fox because they reported it.

I don't slam Fox because they reported it, I slam Fox because they lie and stretch the truth in the headline in an apparent attempt to bias the reader. The reporter seemed to do a good enough job ( ... )

darthmedusa77 October 8 2009, 11:09:28 UTC

I couldn't finish reading that article because it made me so angry. I have several copies of this book in my classroom, as well as many other books with far "worse" topics.

I teach 9th graders...and this dad thinks his 11th grader can't handle it? This kind of thing just makes me sick. I stopped reading at the part where the principal supposedly agreed that the book was "trash."

As teachers, we struggle to get students, especially boys, to read. The reason a lot of kids hate reading is that they don't think they can relate to any books. This particular book is one that many, many students can relate to. While it is not anywhere close to being my favorite book, it is really disturbing to me that anyone would call it "trash."

halfbloodme October 8 2009, 19:31:04 UTC

*rolls eyes at the father* Seriously, I cannot begin to describe my annoyance at men like this one. I gave my sixteen year old cousin a copy of "Around the Houses" which is a fictional book written by one of my university lecturers (Amanda Boulter) and centres around a lesbian couple and their lives... she let a friend borrow it and her mother went ballistic at me and at my cousin. It's bigoted people like the man in the article and the mother I'm talking about that keep hatred alive in today's world.