Captain Underpants Stays Up
on Orfordville School Library Shelves
The materials review committee for the Orfordville (Wis.) Elementary School voted unanimously November 9 to keep Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space tucked in the media center collection. The committee was formed after Orfordville parents Tom and Lauren Hartung objected to the book as encouraging disrespect for authority and outrageous behavior as well as for containing violence and inappropriate language.
Charging that the committee “had an answer for everything—from the First Amendment to ‘Children realize that if they do something wrong there are consequences,’” Tom Hartung said in the November 10 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Parents should scrutinize their children’s school materials and notify officials about items that make them “uncomfortable,” he suggested.
The second title in the Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey, the book recounts how two unruly students save their school from aliens by teaming with their school principal, who has been hypnotized by the boys into believing that he is Captain Underpants.
Posted November 22, 1999.
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