A Kamloops, B.C., father is demanding the school district ban a book his son's high school class is reading because he says it is pornographic and unsuitable for teens. Dean Audet wants the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower pulled off school shelves and banned because he says students in Grade 10 shouldn't be reading a book with content this vulgar.  "Suicide by gunshot, boyfriend punches girl in the face hard, Grade 4 girl letting boys feel her breast, teenage boy having sex with a dog, and it just goes on and on and gets worse from there," says Audet. "Watching sister and boyfriend having sex, graphic step-by-step instructions on how to masturbate, graphic pornographic conversation, child molestation," he adds. While Audet finds the book pornographic and vulgar, others have described the novel by American Stephen Chbosky as a coming-of-age novel about an introverted teenager who has trouble controlling his emotions as he struggles to fit in. Since it was first published by MTV in 1999, the New York Times bestseller has frequently been compared to J.D. Salinger's cult classic The Catcher in the Rye. It has also been made into a critically-acclaimed movie starring Harry Potter star Emma Watson. The film is being watched in his son's class, and Audet says his son asked to be excused from the viewing. Despite the book's popularity with young readers and teachers, parents in the U.S. have also attempted to ban the book from schools. For his part, Audet has asked the Kamloops School Board to pull the book from the curriculum. "The point is, should we be feeding this to our children in high school in the public school system?" he asks. The Kamloops/Thompson School District has given Audet's son an alternative book to read, Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan. The book is the third in a series following the adventures of amnesiac, demigod teenager Percy Jackson. Superintendent Terry Sullivan says, as per its policy, the school district will make a decision on a ban after The Perks of Being a Wallflower is reviewed by an independent committee. "I've seen too many examples of censorship, which are applied to everyone with respect to books. Many of them are classics," said Sullivan. A complaint from a parent in Wallingford, Connecticut, has prompted the district’s superintendent of schools to remove Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower from the required reading list for high school freshmen. The parent, Jean-Pierre Bolat, complained about the book’s depiction of homosexuality, sex, masturbation, and a “glorification of alcohol use and drugs,” according to the Record-Journal, a local newspaper. “I don’t believe in censorship, but believe in appropriateness,” Bolat said. In January, Bolat appeared before a committee of teachers, administrators, and a library media specialist to explain why he wanted to have the book removed. The committee voted to retain Perks. But the reconsideration policy allows a parent to appeal, and Bolat asked Superintendent of Schools Salvatore Menzo to intervene. Menzo could have cited district policy to support a decision to keep the book. “While the Board of Education upholds the right of all parents to assess and evaluate their own children’s educational materials, it will resist any attempt to censor materials used by others,” it reads. Instead, in February the superintendent ordered the removal of Perks from the required reading list. In January, the Wallingford Town Council had unanimously approved Bolat’s appointment to fill a vacant seat on the town’s Board of Education, thus putting Menzo under his supervision. The Kids’ Right to Read Project (KRRP), which was co-founded by the American Booksellers for Free Expression and the National Coalition Against Censorship, protested in a letter sent to Menzo on March 20. The letter stated that Bolat “has every right to feel this way about how he seeks to raise his own children. But the relevant law prevents school administrators from granting one parent control over the education of other children, or from privileging the moral values of some parents over others.” Menzo insists that he has not banned the book but has removed it temporarily while a decision is made whether it should be required reading or supplementary material. The district was “pressing a pause button,” Menzo said. The book remains available in the high school library. But his decision has other parents complaining. “Appropriateness is not determined by another individual when it comes to my child,” one parent said in correspondence with school officials that is quoted by the Record-Journal. She is using the school’s reconsideration policy to challenge the ban. A petition is being circulated on Change.org urging the school board to reinstate Perks. A website, Muckrock.com, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for school documents relating to the controversy. A Record-Journal editorial also criticized the school superintendent. Menzo said he pulled the book because he needed more advice before making a final decision. But the editorial rejects his claim, pointing to the KRRP letter. “[T]here are plenty of sources of insight that were available to Menzo....including the National Coalition Against Censorship, the Association of American Publishers, the National Council of Teachers of English, the American Booksellers for Free Expression and the PEN American Center’s Children’s and Young Adult Book Committee,” it said. A resolution is not expected soon. Since Wallingford’s freshmen read Perks before it was pulled, the final decision will affect next year’s class.
Once said by the famous Stephen Chbosky, “Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes ours ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.” I think this book should be banned because it displays delicate and sensitive material and would put bad images into the younger generation 's minds and be corrupted by it. It should only be read by high school and college students because the material in the book can be understood by those age groups and they would know how to handle it and not be discouraged by it. The reasons why this particular book was banned/challenged is because of sexual situations, drug abuse, profanity, coming of age, sexuality, sex, love, alcohol, and torture shown throughout the book. …show more content… One of the reasons why the book was banned is because it contained material related to sex and in many people’s eyes, that wasn’t very appropriate for an author to put into a book. “But over the summer, she had her braces taken off, and she got a lot taller and prettier and grew breasts. Now, she acts a lot dumber in the hallways, especially when boys are around.” (Chbosky pg.6-7) Another reason why this book was banned because of its use of drugs and alcohol. “Patrick and Brad both got pretty drunk at this party. Actually, Patrick said Brad was pretending to be a lot drunker than he really was.” (Chbosky pg. 43) To sum this all up, this book was banned because of drug, alcohol, sex, many other banned worthy books have been banned for. The Perks Of Being a Wallflower was banned for good reason so the youth of today don’t get corrupted by the material in the book. Many people may agree or disagree with me because of what I’ve said previously, and thats okay because everyone has their own opinion on many things, including why this book should/shouldn’t be banned from everywhere in the |
Why was the perks of being a wallflower banned
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