Dist. 214 board member wants to ban 7 books
BY ERIN HOLMES
Daily Herald Staff Writer eholmes@dailyherald.com
Posted Thursday, May 18, 2006, DailyHerald.com

Northwest Suburban High School District 214 school board member Leslie Pinney is leading a push to get seven books bumped from required reading lists next year, saying they are littered with lewd language and graphic sexual references inappropriate for teens.

Among those she says should go: the Vietnam war piece "The Things They Carried," Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five," Kate Chopin's 1899 "The Awakening," about a woman exploring her sexuality, and "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," described as a modern-day "Catcher in the Rye."

Pinney also is targeting Toni Morrison's "Beloved," the best-seller "Freakonomics" and "The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World," a non-fiction work that examines the relationship between humans and plants - using marijuana as one example.

Pinney has not read any of the books, and "I don't know if I would want to," she says.

Working off a list of texts recommended for purchase in District 214 next year, she browsed the Internet for details - and uncovered, she says, a number of explicit excerpts she says make her question the books' validity as literature and their place in the curriculum.

Some of the passages, she argues, are barely cleaner than magazine pornography.

"As I saw what I reading there, it's like, 'Wow,'æ" says Pinney, who was elected to the school board in 2005. "Why would these be books you'd want the students to study? I just really thought better of our system."

Excerpts she highlights feature extensive swearing, violence and references to sexual acts including masturbation, bestiality and homosexuality. One part of "Freakonomics" that raised her ire hypothesizes that legalized abortion could lower the homicide rate.

Pinney sent excerpts to her fellow board members, but no one on the board has yet indicated they share her opinion.

Meanwhile, District 214 educators say she is taking some of the clips out of context.

As well, district policy allows parents who find material objectionable to call the teacher and request an alternative.

Board member Miriam "Mimi" Cooper said classrooms are a good, controlled setting for teenagers to read about and discuss adult situations they will encounter later in life.

"These are high school students who I think have the maturity," Cooper said. "A book with adult language or adult situations - those are teaching moments for kids."

Before the books get to the school board, they've been selected by teachers who have read the works and, often, chosen them with help from national curriculum guides. Teachers' choices are reviewed by division heads as well.

The texts flagged by Pinney have for the most part been used in District 214 before, said Hersey High English division head Chuck Venegoni. He adds the books are common in high-performing high schools across the nation.

"To think that this is some willy-nilly selection of some sexed-out teacher who wound up in some high school is just absolutely ludicrous," he said.

"People think what's being shoved down their throat is some type of gutter trash," he added, "and in reality, if they want their kids to have an education that is competitive, these kids will be exposed to these works."

He scoffs at the notion that any of the texts are pornographic or, for that matter, too graphic. Rather, he says, they let teens grasp tough issues through literature.

Some of the books have seen controversy before.

"Slaughterhouse-Five" has been challenged in other American school systems since Vonnegut published it in 1969.

Stephen Chbosky's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," about teen angst, ran into problems in Texas in 2004-05, was challenged in Wisconsin in 2004 and was removed from a reading list in New York in 2003.

In District 214 and elsewhere, the latter book - which is billed as young-adult literature - is being used as a comparative piece with the classic, "Catcher in the Rye," Vengoni said. That J.D. Salinger novel also has been banned before.

"The Things They Carried," a novel about the horrors of Vietnam, has been a favorite of students for six years at Buffalo Grove High School, said English division head Sue Carley - and one they often want to share with their families.

Pinney said she is continuing to scour the reading lists for other objectionable titles.

Hersey parent Greg Holz, who got wind of her concerns, said he and his wife have started reading "The Perks of Being a Wallflower."

"I don't find the content of the book to be appropriate for 15- to 18-year-old children," he says. "What I've read so far, to me, defines pornography."

He and others say they don't care if the texts are common in classrooms across America.

"Just because somebody else does something, that doesn't mean it's right," said Mike Phelts, whose children will attend Prospect High. "You have to have a standard of what is right and of what is wrong."

The debate has caught the attention of the Culture Campaign, a conservative Christian group. The group's Web site attacks books on District 214's reading list and urges people to contact Pinney or attend next week's board meeting to protest.

The school board will listen to concerns, board President Bill Dussling said, but adds it's unlikely to change where the district stands.

"This is an not an attempt on the part of the staff of this district to try to warp the minds of students," Dussling said. "You have to have faith that what they're doing is the best that can be done for the students."