Brave New World

Following up on yesterday’s book banning post, today comes news that the books will not be removed from the school curriculum.

In the end, the school board voted unanimously to keep Brave New World and Stranger in a Strange Land, while giving parents more control over their students’ choices by requiring principals to automatically offer an alternative to a challenged book.

While I’m very glad that this was the final decision, the requirement to offer alternative choices seems a little silly. How is that going to work? Most of the class reads Brave New World, while two or three students read something else? Class discussions are going to be an interesting experience.

(via Go Fish)

Concerned parents in Texas want to ban Brave New World and Stranger in a Strange Land.

The board of directors for the South Texas Independent School District is expected to decide tonight whether to ban two books — Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land — from the high school’s 10th grade English Advanced Placement curriculum.

The books, part of the class’ summer reading list, may lead to “inappropriate sexual arousal of young teens,” parent Julie Wilde wrote in her complaint to the district.

Obviously (to me, at least), this is patently stupid. But I did have one question.

Would Ms. Wilde be so kind as to suggest some alternate reading that provides appropriate sexual arousal for young teens?

Britney Spears’ autobiography, perhaps?

(via Go Fish)