We All Fall Down Restricted
in Texas School System
After reading We All Fall Down a second time, Arlington (Tex.) Independent School District Superintendent Mac Bernd has ordered circulation of the book restricted to students who have their parents’ written permission to borrow it. His March 17 action came after local parent Donna Harkreader appealed a March 14 decision of a panel of school librarians to retain the title in middle and high schools even though a separate review committee had ordered it pulled from the Boles Junior High School library in January.
Harkreader’s objection centered on the violence depicted in the book, a story of how a high-school-aged boy copes with his actions after he and three friends attempt to rape a teenage girl when she discovers them vandalizing a home.
“It came down to a decision of age-appropriateness,” Bernd said in the March 18 Arlington Morning News. Conceding that “Parents know best what their children can absorb and understand,” author Robert Cormier told the paper that controversial books belong in the classroom so teachers can “guide [students] in their understanding of the issues.”
Posted March 27, 2000.
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