Couldn’t agree more with today’s Los Angeles Times editorial praising a 17-year-old high school student for standing up on behalf of a Stephen King story collection when it was removed from her school library.
The Times reports that:
“Different Seasons” isn’t on the American Library Assn.’s inventory of 100 most frequently challenged books (the Harry Potter series tops the most recent list), but a rape scene in one story led to a complaint from a parent at Rocklin High School. …
A school committee voted to pull the book from the library shelves, with only 17-year-old senior Amanda Wong dissenting. The other members of the committee, all adults, reportedly didn’t even read the book through before voting. Amanda complained to the school board and got results.
Different Seasons contains both “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Stand By Me,” both of which were made into movies. The story causing the controversy was “Apt Pupil,” also made into a movie.
It’s all the more crazy-making to hear Wong explain, in a Sacramento CBS interview, that she was the only person on the board who’d read the entire book when the decision was made.