Posted on 10/21/2009 10:16:33 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Locals express concerns about "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," which includes a rape scene of an 8-year-old.
An autobiography by renowned author Maya Angelou has become the latest book in Orange County to be challenged as unfit for school libraries.
Judy Ahrens, a former Westminster School District trustee, took to the podium at Monday's Huntington Beach City Council meeting to read a scene from Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' that details the rape of an 8-year-old girl. The reading was a demonstration on why the book should be banned, she told the audience.
"I would like to say I don't wish to read this material … but for the sake of the innocence of our children … sometimes we have to do things in life we are uncomfortable with," Ahrens said during the meeting which is televised on the city's cable channel.
The best-seller is the first volume of Angelou's autobiographical series and was the third most challenged book in schools during the 1990s, according to the American Library Association.
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,'' published in 1970, is a memoir tracing Angelou's childhood in a rural community during the 1930s. The theme of the book is using "the power of education and literature to save oneself from a bad living situation and overcoming adversity," said Deborah Caldwell, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom with the American Library Association.
"There is this rape scene in the book but it is part of the larger theme where the character overcomes such obstacles to become a better person," she said. "Denying the entire community access to the book is a real issue especially when it is a publicly funded library." Other books have come under fire in Orange County in recent years.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
Yep. Amazon.com and BN.com have redlined their little town, preventing anyone from getting their hands on it. /sarc
Frankly, I don’t like the bamming of any material. If you don’t want to read the book don’t.
Remember the lessons from Farenheight 451
This is not banning books. This is not offering certain books to school-age kids. If parents want their kids to read that book, they can buy the book or take the kid to the library to check it out. Some parents don’t appreciate having their 8-year-olds being able to browse the stacks in their school library and come across this.
And I say that as something of a pervie myself. I am not sex averse at all, but to think that this sort of garbage was essentially forced upon my children pisses me off.
According to Whoopi, it wasn't "rape-rape".
Based upon the article, it seems appropriate to prevent children from borrowing the book, but it should not be banned from libraries. I don’t get the impression that the rape passage is at all prurient, but rather a description of a horrible event from the author’s childhood.
Oops, I just read more carefully and see this is a SCHOOL library issue. I would definitely agree that young children should not have access to such a book. Allowing high schoolers to borrow it would seem debatable to me.
This is about a middle school library NOT elementary school. Moreover an 8 year old (even if very advanced in reading ability) is most likely not going to pick this book to read. Middle school includes young teens. We read as part of the cirriculum Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mocking Bird, and several other ‘bad books’.
The term ‘school aged kids’ covers way too much ground. That could as easily mean high schoolers who really should be reading challenging material ( which by the way I do not think Maya Angelou is -—different argument).
Yes we need to be vigilant but we also need to have our children be able to be knowledgeab;e enough to 1) know trash when they read it ( and hence not bother) and 2) to survive having ‘our notions’ challenged
Good point. There is a big difference between allowing such material in a middle school or high school library, and requiring children to read such material. If a parent wants his 13 year old to read this book, it should be their choice, but no child should be required to read such content, without parental permission.
"An autobiography by renowned author Maya Angelou has become the latest book in Orange County to be challenged as unfit for school libraries."
"Denying the entire community access to the book is a real issue especially when it is a publicly funded library."
So what are they complaining about, school libraries (for which the book might be inappropriate) or public libraries to which the whole community has access?
And how many school kids are going to read Maya Angelou unless someone makes them?
BTW, I just checked the toysrus site and Whoopi is no longer splattered across the page proclaiming how much she loves kids...
Sorry, but I don’t want the school offering my middle school student a book that graphically describes rape. But then again, that is much less likely to happen in a parochial school. Another reason to avoid public schools like the plague. When I was in school (yes, the stone age) there was a big fuss over a book about Mary Magdalene in the library. I couldn’t figure out what the fuss was about because I already had read it and had trouble determining exactly what was going on. It made no mention of sex, only “sin” and “shame”! But I believe you can teach children and teens to discriminate between good writing and bad without exposing them to Maya Angelou-type content.
Good.
I wrote Toys R Us a very blunt letter outlining the problems and telling them that I would no longer do any business with them at all if they continued the campaign with Whoopi Goldberg.
To their credit, I'm sure the whole thing blindsided them, and they did remove it very quickly.
My daughter is older now, but it would not have bothered me a bit for her to read this when she was 8. It would have prompted a good talk between us.
Oh come on! Book banning can be lots of fun!
First, someone insists that we remove "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" from the library and then the next person in line can insist that we remove "To Kill a Mockingbird" from the library.
And then every person in the entire community can choose books that they do not wish you or your kids to read and those books will also be removed from the library.
Before you know it, there will be no more books and the Nanny State Sycophants will be happy.
Read the rape section at a school board meeting.
Schools should not assign any works that can’t be printed in the local paper.
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