Like to read? Hate censorship? Then this article from FOR THE LOVE OF YA will get you really angry.

Risha Mullins tells us her story about dealing with parents more concerned about their children's' ideological purity that their educations.  As a parent, a writer and a reader this story really got my blood boiling. 

 

Censorship at its Finest: Remembering

...A parent whose child had chosen to read Lessons from a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles, and how that parent sent an email to the superintendent, the board members, the principals, and me saying that I taught “soft pornography.” Remembering the way my stomach hurt when I read the email, how I cried and stayed up all night drafting a nine-page rebuttal that began with, “Literature is my life, and I take my career very seriously. I have worked extremely hard to get students to read, and the school is just beginning to see the impact of that.” Remembering getting called to my principal’s office the next day and berated for sending the rebuttal to everyone the parent had sent to (I did not send it to the parent). Remembering how my curriculum coach said she had thought I'd be fired before she even made it to school that morning. 

Remembering how stupid—how naïve—I was to send my rebuttal to the entire English department, thinking they needed to know that literature—our livelihood!—was under attack, thinking that we were a team and that we were supposed to support each other. Remembering the anger, the shock, that surged through me when the only two teachers in my department who bothered replying at all, did so to belittle me with how I had misrepresented “the classics” (which I had not done). Remembering what it felt like when I was asked to resign as the Literacy Committee chair--after only a month in the position--because “it just didn’t look good for the committee right now.” 

After that email, my curriculum coach told me—in the principal’s office, with him present—that she had to beg the superintendent not to shut down the Moo Moo Book Club, and that she quoted him when she said, “one more problem with books and the club is gone.” I remember asking if he could do that. And I remember her laughing. Then on October 10, 2008, I received the edict—on signed letterhead: “After investigating the situation and discussing it with Ms. X, I have decided that all books in question in your classroom library and on the Moo Moo Club reading list will be pulled and reviewed…” Every book. Class and club. And yet not a single official challenge had been filed, as  board policy required for a book to be suspended... 

 

click here to read the rest (and you really should...)

 

Look folks I'm just a weird little guy that likes to spend his spare time writing stories about haunted underwear and super heroes and super heroes with haunted underwear but it is important the sane people get in the way of these censoring lunatics. 

Throughout junior high and high school my scores in English class were either abysmal or spectacular and the reason always came down to two things- the quality of the teacher and the quality of what I was given to read. 

Heck in 7th grade I was in remedial English until one of the teachers started to give me reading assignments out of a book called 'Thrillers and Chillers'. It was mostly stories by guys like Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson and it was the first time I ever read ahead in a textbook.

That's what is so tragic about Risha's story- she had these kids reading! The test scores were up.

The whole damn thing just breaks my heart...