CiUHc3E7_V_nDaycUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU">A children's book that was banned from elementary school libraries in the 1980s will be honored with a special reading in Janesville this week as part of Banned Books Week.

The English honor society Sigma Kappa Delta is sponsoring Tuesday's reading of Shel Silverstein's "A Light in the Attic" at the University of Wisconsin-Rock County.

The university says the book had been challenged at a Beloit elementary school because it "encourages children to break dishes so they won't have to dry them."

It also says a Mukwanago elementary school banned it in 1986 because some of its poems "glorified Satan, suicide and cannibalism, and also encouraged children to be disobedient."

I challenge the premise that this book should be honored for that reason. It's not a question of some Nazified, over-reaching government entity trying to destroy a work of art. It's a matter of whether, in the judgement of the school board that was duly elected by the people to decide such matters, the book in question was age-appropriate for the students of that establishment.

They decided it wasn't.

They were probably right.

Don't get me wrong, here. I adore me some Shel Silverstein. "The Great Smoke Off" is absolutely one of my favorite guilty-pleasure songs. But the man has a twisted sense of humor, and some of his works are conceptually out of reach for the young and inexperienced who don't have the mental tools to appreciate the richness of the commentary they hold within.

So if SKD wants to read Silverstein because he simply kicks ass, that'd be wonderful. But doing it because and ONLY because he's not kid-safe?

That's just stupid.

Posted by: Harvey at 08:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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