In Knoxville, a movement is afoot to prevent a book that has never been written from being assigned:

"The Color Purple"is a bit too off-color for 13-year-olds, Anderson County School Board members said Thursday.

An Honors English class teacher at Anderson County High School recommended Toni Morrison's novel as summer reading for students entering ninth grade next month.

But about a third of the students' parents have voiced concerns to board members and school officials about graphic passages dealing with rape and incest in the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

"It don't think that (ninth grade) is the proper time for kids to be introduced to that stuff," parent Roger Alley told board members.

"My son is a senior, and I wouldn't want him reading it," board member Ron Hagans said.

School Principal Bob McCracken read the book after he was told of the controversy and also agreed it wasn't appropriate for rising freshmen, said another board member, Dail Cantrell.

The English teacher then offered up an alternative novel, Cantrell said. Students could instead read "Watership Down," Richard Adams' story about a pack of wandering rabbits.

That didn't allay Alley's concerns. He said he didn't want his daughter in class when "The Color Purple" was discussed.

Some board members said the issue left them on a tightrope between concerned parents and accusations of censorship.

"We got into censoring books before, and it's a keg of worms we don't want to open up," board Chairman Dr. John Burrell said.

"This is not censorship as much as holding teachers to age-appropriate material," Cantrell said.

He suggested that school English departments review recommended reading lists next year and issue advisories on which books have graphic content.

Cantrell said Morrison's novel was suggested by the teacher as summer reading to coincide with a lesson planned about molestation that was prompted by student interest in the Michael Jackson trial.

Cantrell later said the teacher likely would be asked to select another study subject so discussion of the novel could be avoided.

In any case, I'll just note that the article's palpably patronizing tone--not only failing to fact check crucial points such as who write the book in question, but also punning on "Alley" with "allay", joking that The Color Purple is off-color, and dismissively describing Richard Adams' parable about territoriality, community, and war as "a story about a pack of wandering rabbits"--renders it inadequate to the task at hand. Efforts to censor books should be taken seriously, and the precise dimensions of the arguments levelled against assigning certain works to certain students should be scrupulously recorded so that they can be closely scrutinized and debated. One irony here that the journalist misses is that Watership Down is hardly pablum; to propose it as an alternative to The Color Purple is not to attempt to replace graphic content with inoffensive pap, but to assert that rising freshmen are better equipped to read about homelessness, bloodlust, and fear for one's life than they are to read about illicit sexual relations within families.

Watership Down has been a staple of school reading lists for decades now. But so has The Color Purple, which has a solid spot on recommended AP reading lists. It may be the case that parents feel that younger teens aren't up for Walker's treatment of sex--but it might be more to the point for them to wonder whether their kids are up for Walker's handling of dialect. The novel is told from the perspective of Celie, an illiterate black woman who has been abused by both her father and husband. Walker tries to capture Celie's voice by abandoning straightforward prose and writing in Celie's special brand of southern black English. The result is a novel that is at once poetic and dense, as much about language as it is about what the language describes (read an excerpt here). Young readers who have not encountered that technique before may well struggle with it--to the point where the question of whether they can handle the novel's sexual content becomes secondary to the question of whether they can follow the novel's plot through its nuanced colloquial turns of phrase.

I'd love to hear readers' thoughts on age-appropriate reading assignments--from the standpoint of content as well as style. And I'd love, too, to hear their thoughts on Adams and Walker--as writers, and as fixtures in high school English classes.

Two things:

Taking a book off of a required or even recommended reading list does not equal censorship.

Parents should have some say in what the schools are telling their children to read.

OK, three:

It irritates me, too, when news articles get easily-checked facts wrong and when serious matters are treated lightly. It makes me wonder whether I can trust anything in the article, including quotes.

Parents should have some say, but teachers and administrators should have the final word.

I suppose I always wonder what parents will think might happen to their children if a book contains off-color language, sex, or violence. Many of the people I know lost their virginity in high school; and my high school was a very violent place at times. But none of these slags and thugs were too much into reading. I imagine for many parents, it's a scenario straight out of mid-century anti-drug propaganda: one puff of Henry Miller and innocent little Mary will be flashing her training bra on *Girls Gone Wild 41*, while a snort of John Webster will turn gentle Billy into a sadistic, torture-hungry hooligan straight out of Burgess's worst fantasies.

That's why I think all kids should listen to Richard Pryor's *That Nigger's Crazy* and read William Burrough's *Naked Lunch* at the age of 10, if only to scare nervous parents even more.

"Parents should have some say, but teachers and administrators should have the final word."

I disagree. I never signed my child over to strangers to instill with whatever values they felt like, even if they conflicted with mine.

As to the Richard Pryor thing, what about kids who listen to that and then repeat the "n" word in front of the wrong person? I think some inhibitions are a good thing. Some are necessary for self-preservation.

"I never signed my child over to strangers to instill with whatever values they felt like, even if they conflicted with mine."

But most schoolboards are made up of elected officials, aren't they?
And shouldn't a parent make some effort to know who's teaching their children?

My point is that the "strangers" are hardly random people, full of horrible ideas.

And they aren't really instilling "whatever values" they wish--most schools are trying to educate--and sometimes that means exposure to ugly things (like the Holocaust or the many wars throughout history).

Kids are exposed to sex, drugs, and violence when they venture out into the world (whether they partake in these things or not) and I'm willing to bet that they see or hear of things just as bad as in _The Color Purple_. At least in a classroom a teacher can provide some guidance.

I suspect we are going to have to agree to disagree.

My daughter is 18 and she can read what she chooses. I won't be going off to college with her to scrutinize her reading lists. But I did scrutinize them in middle school, and if there were any books on the lists that I didn't want her to read, I would not have let the teachers have their way against my judgement. Maybe you would, but I would not.

The (generally elected) school board is the final say in a district. They need to reign inthe teachers and administrators here and there (probably more often that they do in practice).

Well, "The Color Purple" definitely has a place on a high school reading list but I feel that placing it on a rising freshman summer reading list is ill advised. The extensive use of dialect and "adult themes" are both good reasons to move it to a later time.

Probably, a better reason is that the parents may not be mature or comfortable enough to handle discussions which may (and should) result from the reading of this book. :-) The parents (including myself, 3 daughters and a son) desparately want to maintain the illusion that the world is safe and largely good. Issues of rape, incest and ill treatment of women by men is something we sincerely wished did not exist but sadly is part of our reality and history.

If not in high school, when do you have discussions about these issues? Of course, I am not a proponent of parents dictating school curriculums to teachers who I always have found to be professionals and caring. If parents can be effective teachers, if they are willing to step up to the challenge.

Just a small comment (from a Knoxvillian) -- this controversy is actually happening in Clinton, TN not Knoxville. Clinton is a much smaller, more rural community located about 30 minutes from Knoxville. The Knoxville News Sentinel is the only paper of size in the area.

I did have a giggle about about author mix-up. Unfortunately, I would not be surprised if it did come from the reporter. I am always disappointed in the quality of the Knoxville News Sentinel.

How can you be sure what the teacher will have to say about "issues of rape, incest, and ill treatment of women by men"? There are some mighty strange ideas out there about what women have coming to them, and so forth, and I haven't heard that teachers are immune to having those ideas. Unless you know the teacher personally you really have no idea what the kids will take away from their lesson plan. I'm just not sure they're not taking too much on themselves in deciding that the students need their special wisdom on these issues. Why can't the parents discuss them?

It occurs to me that I did divert one book from my child's recommended reading list before 7th or 8th grade, can't remember which. I brought home the books from the library for her to read. One of them, Chuck Yeager's autobiography, I dug into myself because I expected it to be really interesting. It turned out to be fairly sexist, to my way of thinking, and not anything I cared to have my little girl read, especially while she was trying to figure out what it means to be a woman, and I was trying to teach her to step up to the plate and not expect to live her life through a man. Not to mention, I think it's hypocritical of the school to assign books whose heroes can't seem to speak two sentences without using profanity that would get the kids themselves suspended if they used it in front of a teacher. Since the book was only recommended, not required, I substituted Lost Moon, the Apollo 13 story. But I can't remember any other time I've done that. I read most of her reading list books, if I hadn't read them already, and they were pretty good picks.

Laura -

Thank you for challenging me.

You bring up some interesting points and think we probably agree in spirit. My main point which I failed to make clear (my fault) was the importance of frank discussion of the themes in literature whether it be "The Color Purple", "Scarlet Letter", or even Chuck Yeager's Autobiography. Sexism, Racism, and exploitation are important themes that need to be discussed before the kids leave the home. I think that anyone who posts on this blog would not have any problem countering assertions made in the classroom by the teachers or bringing up topics of discussion which were omitted. My concern is that some sanitation of the curriculum is used to avoid difficult status quo challenging discussions. Yes, I try to read everything on the reading lists given to my children to ensure they are receiving a good Education, to further own education, act as a good role model, and participate in my children's lives. If they come back from school with ideas, notions, or beliefs which are contrary to my own. I accept the challenge, roll up my sleeves, and begin a thoughtful, serious debate. If the only counter argument that comes to mind is "Cuz...that's the way it is...we don't believe that. period.", then I, as a parent, person and citizen, have some serious work to do . I should be able to win that debate or influence their thinking or conclusions...if my argument is sound. I want my children to think, believe and act based on what they decide after careful consideration of actual facts, use of primary sources, and consideration of all sides, and critical analysis not because that's what someone said or that's what everyone does.

...lol...I know silly dream but I am willing to try.

:-)

PS : I make it real point to show my kids how to fact-check things that they read. Of course, the internet helps in this regard but I try to implore upon them that critical reading is a life skill. If you do not think something is right, find out why. It beats watching television. It can be fun to pop the Balloons of the Pompous, but always with wit, respect and courtesy. :-)