The Menifee School District in California responded to a potentially graphic text, brought to their attention by one parent, by banning the book from all school shelves. This book is the dictionary. (see here and here)
Yes, you read that correctly.
The Merriam Webster 10th edition is now a banned book after one parent, shocked at seeing a child actually reading the dictionary for fun, became even more shocked when the child stumbled across the definition for "oral sex." Outraged that the dictionary would contain definitions of things that actually happen, the parent asked that the book be removed and that children no longer be able to improve their vocabularies. Somehow, the school district caved to the wishes of one person.
No word on whether the dictionary contains an accompanying image.
I guess if you have to ban one book, it should be the dictionary. After all, it does contain every word in the language. You'll certainly cover all your bases by banning it. This makes sense, since if children can't use a dictionary, they'll probably stop being curious. There is no way--no way--that they will Google the term "oral sex."
In my opinion, this parent did not go far enough. We should not stop with "oral sex." We should ban access to any source that describes less-than-ideal behavior: murder, stab, shoplift, cheat, steal, gay*, lesbian*, karaoke, Electric Slide, flashmob, etc. Just get rid of all the deadly sins as well. Certainly we should ban plagiarize from every reference source. If kids don't know what it means, they won't do it.
But we have much more to be worried about than oral sex. I can only imagine the logical next step for kids: Dictionary.com will be the new source for porn, where kids can delight in the salacious definitions of such words as
- Brown nose: "from the image of an obsequious person whose nose becomes soiled in kissing the rump of someone from whom favor is sought" (American Heritage Dictionary)
- Scumbag: "a condom" (Random House Dictionary)
- Putz: "a penis" (American Heritage Dictionary)
Comments