A local school board has removed the book "Fat Kid Rules The World" from its libraries, citing the naughty words and references to drug use. Interestingly, the article's only dissenting viewpoint is from the author of the book.
I am, in principle, against censorship, and I find the arguments of the 'concerned parents' a little bit naive, to be honest. (No, I don't have kids, and no, I haven't read the book.) But the more I've thought about this, the more I side with the school in this case. They're not the Library of Congress; they can decide what goes in the library and what doesn't. And it's not like they're preventing kids from reading the book; the county library has at least four copies at its various branches (all of which, shockingly, are checked out). If they start actively taking the book from students, then the line has been crossed. Otherwise, it's $6.99 on Amazon, kids.
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The irony is that they have now made it subversive and cool. If they had left it alone, probably 3 kids in the whole school would have read it. When I was in highschool we read Cather In The Rye for English-sometimes out loud in class. I never figured out how that made it past the school board.
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