Cops called on Teen distrubting "banned" book

[packman]

Thankfully, the cops acted in the right way. But the whole incident says something about the parents who worked to get the book banned from the local school's curriculum. The book in question is Sherman Alexie’s young adult novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian"






http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/219767/parents-call-cops-on-teen-for-giving-away-banned-book-it-backfires-predictably/?utm_source=share-fb&utm_medium=button

[Scuba]

1. This shit comes from the "knowledge is a bad thing" crowd. Fuck 'em.

[cleanhippie]

5. Funny how almost always that crowd is steeped in their religion.

[Scuba]

6. Well duh.

[melman]

2. Wait

that's the junior high student in the photo?

[TexasProgresive]

9. Unless her name is Brady I don't think so.

The got someone to pose with the book for a pic. She's probably not one of the kids.

[Brother Buzz]

13. She's a junior in high school

Brady Kissel is a junior at Mountain View High School in Meridian, Idaho.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/book-em-danno

[melman]

17. Okay. There was a mistake in the linked article

it says:

"Parents in Idaho called the cops last week on junior-high student Brady Kissel when she had the nerve to help distribute a book they’d succeeded in banning from the school curriculum."

[Brother Buzz]

20. Yes, but original story back in March, when the dustup started got it right.

Ban his books, Alexie says, and he sells even more

March 12, 2015
The author of a controversial book comes to Boise with no apology for the dustup his book caused.

From the moment he took the stage at the Egyptian Theatre on Wednesday night, Sherman Alexie was unrepentant about his work.

"So I hear there was, like, some controversy with my book," he said, as an audience of 800 erupted with laughter. He wrote a book that was pulled from a West Ada School District supplemental reading list for several months last year.

<snip>

There were moments in the public squabbling over "Part-Time Indian" that surprised Alexie, such as when Brady Kissel, then a junior at Mountain View High School, defended the book in front of the school board.

"It was Brady's fight, and Brady stepped up in an amazing way," Alexie said.

During the evening's lecture, he introduced Kissel and praised her for her courage.

She helped distribute copies of the book at a Meridian park after the novel was yanked from the school district's sophomore reading list. Someone called the police on her.

"The cops were called out ... for book distribution," Alexie said.

<more>

http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/article40847214.html

On edit: I started counting and realized Brady Kissel must be a senior in high school now.

[Lochloosa]

21. Here is Brady with her mother and the author.

[JEB]

3. Sherman Alexie is one of the best. Should be required reading.

[LuvNewcastle]

4. This is excellent.

I'm so glad to see kids getting interested enough in reading, and in civics, that they pulled off this plan.

[Kber]

7. In the 60's my mom's HS English teacher got the whole class to read Grapes of Wrath

By telling them it had been banned ( supposedly for sex, but probably for its subversive political message).

The public library had a copy for every student and the teacher was "available" after school to discuss if anyone had questions.

The whole class read the book and formed a student book group to discuss.

Not only did they read a great novel, they learned a powerful lesson about the power of ideas and how not to be mislead the those in charge and how to take an active role in their own education and continual learning.

[7962]

11. we had to get slips signed to read it because it "contained some vulgar language"

[jalan48]

12. But gun terrorism in schools is accepted, not vulgar at all.

[appalachiablue]

16. Righto. It's a horror.

[appalachiablue]

15. That's right cuz Steinbeck was a commie pinko, nevermind one of America's greatest

novelists and truth teller of the reality of the Great Depression that had to be censored. Even Hollywood had difficulty dramatizing the 1939 Pulitzer prize winning book with the successful movie a year later starring Henry Fonda.

[tblue37]

8. She looks like Ann Hathaway. nt

[Liberal_in_LA]

22. She sure does

[KT2000]

10. good for the 350!

That is an excellent book. Rather than banning it, it should be required reading.

[Omaha Steve]

14. Didn't they know to call the BOOK police?

K&R!

OS

[nightscanner59]

18. Banned, undoubtedly, by the same right wingers who would cite their 1st amendment rights

When spreading their constipated, backwards and idiotic "information".

[Nevernose]

19. If kids read that book, they'll know masturbation exists

We must prevent them from discovering what virtually every adult human has tried at least once.

My wife teaches the book every year and no one complains. I once showed the kids in my mythology class "Birth of Venus" by Boticelli, and while students and parents didn't care, my supervisor gave me a stern lecture about showing nude pictures. I still show that picture and many others every year. I teach high school seniors. I have at least one student every year who did their basic training in the summer and are literally soldiers/marines. They can drive and vote, most of them. 10-20 percent of my students live independently of their parents, with jobs and rent and shit. Yet my (thank god former) supervisor was terrified that students would discover that girls have nipples, too.

In a tad on the prudish side when it comes to teaching, but when it comes to the human condition their are very few wrongs.