BANNED

One of the texts we selected for freshman English, Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography – The True Story of a Black Youth’s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa, is being sent back to the textbook company. A parent has objected to a passage from the book, which deals with young boys being pimped out to pedophiles.

Here are two reviews via amazon.com

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Kaffir Boy does for apartheid-era South Africa what Richard Wright's Black Boy did for the segregated American South. In stark prose, Mathabane describes his life growing up in a nonwhite ghetto outside Johannesburg--and how he escaped its horrors. Hard work and faith in education played key roles, and Mathabane eventually won a tennis scholarship to an American university. This is not, needless to say, an opportunity afforded to many of the poor blacks who make up most of South Africa's population. And yet Mathabane reveals their troubled world on these pages in a way that only someone who has lived this life can. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
In this powerful account of growing up black in South Africa, a young writer makes us feel intensely the horrors of apartheid. Living illegally in a shanty outside Johannesburg, Johannes (renamed Mark) Mathabane and his illiterate family endured the heartbreak and hopelessness of poverty and the violence of sadistic police and marauding gangs. He describes his drunken father's attempts to inculcate his tribal beliefs and to prevent his son from getting an educationthe one means by which he might escape from the ghetto. Encouraged by his determined mother and grandmother, Mathabane taught himself to read English and play tennis, and, through the assistance of U.S. tennis star Stan Smith and his own efforts and intelligence, obtained a tennis scholarship from a South Carolina college in 1978. Now he is a freelance writer in New York. In the course of relating his inspiring story, he explains the anger and hate that his country's blacks feel toward white people and the inevitability of their rebellion against the Afrikaner government. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


You might wonder how we could possibly select a book dealing with such a subject (that was what our principal, rightfully so too, asked). Well, part of the problem was simply selecting a variety of texts from the publisher. We decided to get several books for each class taught, rather than 200 copies of just one book.

Once we got a list from the textbook company, we began pouring over the titles. However, it was simply impossible to read all of the texts we thought might be good selections. I know this sounds unwise, and it has cost us now, but that’s a fact of life in high school.

You never really know what will be on the textbook company’s list. We assumed To Kill a Mockingbird, for example, would be on their list. Well, it was . . . only in screenplay form. Why they would want kids to read the screenplay rather than the novel is beyond me. I knew several other possible titles from the list (we ended up getting two more that I had read The Jungle and Fahrenheit 451), but there were dozens of others that I had never even heard of before.

We wanted to mix classic works, such as The Jungle, with more modern texts (I once read an article that argued that students should not read novels that were not published before they were born – personally, I think that’s ludicrous . . .), so going off reviews, we picked two texts that we had not read.

We weren’t being lazy. Choosing novels were just a small part of the new curriculum (curriculum mapping, aligning with standards, familiarizing ourselves with the textbook and all of its bells and whistles . . . and this was on top of teaching summer school, the RRVWP, the MNHS class, and, oh yeah . . . having a personal life!).


In every instance, Kaffir Boy, received glowing reviews. Even the students enjoyed it. And when they were disgusted, it was not about the child prostitution part. They were horrified at what the boy had to go through as a child.

Yet, one parent objected.

The novel did get read ahead of time, but it was before my colleagues were going to teach it. They were able to warn the students that the book contained a controversial scene and if they objected, they could select an alternative text.

Yet, one parent objected.

Now the books have been pulled and are being sent back to the publisher. Hopefully, we will be reimbursed and have another text sent.

In my best Atticus fashion, I can see both sides of this issue. Initially I agreed with the decision to yank the text. We are a public institution and this is something we don’t need to cover in class, especially when I read the offensive section.

However, I read it out of the context of the novel. You could take several samples from To Kill a Mockingbird, The Jungle, or The Catcher in the Rye and have the same result.

However, I can see the other side as well. It is not like the students can’t walk down to our media center and read the same thing, my wife reminded me of a scene from Stephen King’s The Stand that is far worse. That is available easily, not only in our media center but also on my SSR shelf.

Are we offering students a false view – or at least a watered down view – of reality? There are terrible things out there. Isn’t part of our job as teachers to open kids’ eyes so they can improve their world? How can we do that by keeping them insulated from real issues? Can’t students flip on the TV and see far, far worse?

I agree.

Either way, there is no easy answer.

It just seems incredibly ironic to me that next week we are having a speaker here discussing sexual abuse. Yet, we ban a nonfiction book on it.

Mixed messages?

Below is a list of banned books a colleague sent.






The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–20001
American Library Association

“[I]t's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.” — Judy Blume
1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women's Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier



The Scary Stories series is one of my most popular SSR books. Kids LOVE them. They love them for the same reasons they are on here: horror stories with horrific content.

How about Of Mice and Men. The first book I really loved reading in school. The first book I really ‘understood’ in a literary sense.

I won’t even touch Harry Potter. I won’t waste space anymore space discussing the religious fools who want it banned.

Holden Caulfield? Are you kidding me. Who do these fucking phonies think they are? (please note the sarcasm). Just thinking about poor, idiotic Holden makes me want to read the book again.

What school in its right mind would carry Madonna’s Sex book?

The Giver? I’m still not over that book.

And #41???? We’re reading that now!

The Outsiders??? Another book that changed my life. I remember reading it in class like it was last week – freshman English . . . Red Lake Falls . . . I wrote an extra chapter to the book that the teacher read outloud to the class.

It’s safe to say that had I not encountered those books . . . and a lot of other ‘dirty’ books that would never be taught in schools (but they are available in most high school libraries), like all of Stephen King (though he is on the list above), Clive Barker, Dean Koontz, H. P. Lovecraft, and Richard Laymon, I might be teaching history.

I like what Gary Paulson said, “You should not only read WHEN they tell you not to but you should also read WHAT they tell you not to.”

After discussing this whole dilemma with some colleagues, I was reminded that - lo and behold - our district has a policy for handling such matters.

Was that process followed?

Apparently, not.

One decision - in the heat of the moment - was made.

However, the fact remains that this is a larger issue.

As one teacher said, this is a piece of non-fiction. In a way, we are hiding a piece of the truth from students. What are we going to NOT teach next?

Should we avoid the holocaust? Evolution? Racism? What?

In Night Wiesel loses his faith after watching a child hanged in the concentration camp. The child, though, is too light. His neck doesn't snap. He must hang there, slowly suffocating to death as Wiesel and the others are paraded in front of him.

That scares the hell out of the kids. As it should.

Is it objectionable? Of course. Should it NOT be taught. Of course NOT.

Where will we draw the line? Doesn't the health department teach "A Boy Called It"? That's graphic. What about The Jungle? A character there becomes a prostitute. Or To Kill a Mockingbird? Where the n-word is dropped left and right?

Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail and we will look at this according to our district policy, which should have been followed right away rather than panicking at the thought of offending a parent.

On the positive side, the students have rallied around the book. Some failed to turn it in - wanting, instead, to finish it on their own. Some parents want their kids to finish it.

I think back on the 40 year old freshman WDAZ broadcast on our school. The reporter talked about how much school has changed. Well, have things changed? Or are we right back to the good old inquisitorial days?