Illinois Principal Bans
Love and Other Four Letter Words
An e-mail from the concerned mother of a 13-year-old to the principal of the youngster’s Naperville, Illinois, school has triggered the removal of Love and Other Four Letter Words from the Lincoln Junior High School library. “We missed the step of having someone read it,” Dan Brace said in the October 19 Naperville Sun, explaining that staff inadvertently violated the district’s selection policy in the rush to process a deluge of acquisitions that arrived last spring.
The Carolyn Macker novel, which contains explicit language, tells of a 16-year-old’s coming of age during her parents’ trial separation. “We have the First Amendment and I believe in that,” complainant Ausra Di Raimondo said. “But let’s leave it for adults.”
“Certainly that book is way out of bounds with what we consider appropriate for our school,” Brace told the newspaper. “It’s basically no more risqué than much of what is seen on television,” disagreed Knopf/Delacorte/Dell Young Reader’s Group Vice-President Beverly Horowitz, noting that youngsters’ “innate sense of self protection” prompts them to close a book if they become uncomfortable. The publisher had recommended Love for children as young as 12.
Posted November 5, 2001.
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