Indiana Parents Perturbed
by Naughty Bits in YA Novels
“I don’t want my children reading that type of trash,” Tracie Yelich of Rosedale, Indiana, said of the young-adult novel Detour for Emmy. “Chapter Six had me vapor locked. It’s a very graphic scene of a young girl and a boy having sex.” Yelich, whose 12-year-old obtained Detour as well as Life On the Color Line from her classroom library, had complained along with several other parents about the titles to Rosedale Elementary School officials. In turn, Principal Adrienne Gideon pulled the books while she considers their contents, the March 20 Terre Haute Tribune Star reported.
“I agree with the mothers who complained,” Gideon remarked of the titles, which were purchased with part of an FY2002 state acquisitions grant to provide supplementary reading material for 4th–6th-graders. Noting that “one book even discussed marijuana and murder,” Gideon added, “We tell the kids you learn from your mistakes and you don’t make the same mistake over again.”
Although the Southwest Parke Community School Corporation has a reconsideration policy in place, parent complaints about the classroom-library collections seem to have bypassed established procedures. Parent Lori Nolan, who had objected to the “cuss words” in a book her daughter brought home, told the Tribune Star, “We are a Christian family and we try to protect our children from this type of trash.”
Posted March 31, 2003.
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