'The Giver' banned?

I'll be honest, it doesn't surprise me. Anything that makes kids think nowadays is likely to get banned.

P.S. it was a great book, one of my favorites when I was younger. I read it a few times.

[QUOTE=Rents]I'll be honest, it doesn't surprise me. Anything that makes kids think nowadays is likely to get banned.

P.S. it was a great book, one of my favorites when I was younger. I read it a few times.[/QUOTE]

Same here. Really loved the philosophy behind it then. So many questions.

No surprise to seeing this book banned. That which teaches us to question endangers foundations set by those who create the guidlines which they believe should be followed.

Such a sad state of affairs.

[img]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:_IXgxVSBwcMJ:www.mce.k12tn.net/reading17/lgiver.gif[/img]

i havent purchased a childrens novel in a long time-

strike that. ive never purchased a childrens novel.

but im getting this one !

just read the editorials on amazon

[QUOTE=JKabol]i havent purchased a childrens novel in a long time-

strike that. ive never purchased a childrens novel.

but im getting this one !

just read the editorials on amazon[/QUOTE]

Glad you have done so. Enjoy.

Лишение людей вещей, что envoke свободное пожелавшее размышление - всего лишь злое дело.
Америка, земля свободных.
Хорошо, вид.
Федеров.

Well if someone doesn't want kids to read a book, banning it is the stupidest thing to do. Is she trying to make it a classic or something?

Ha hahahaha

[QUOTE=Chixulub]I caught this bullshit on the nightly news of my local TV.

A woman in Blue Springs, MO, is launching a campign to remove 'The Giver' from an eighth grade curriculum because it crosses her notions of what a 14 year old should read.

In fairness, I've never read the book, but after hearing her objections on TV, I'm ready to. It sounds like a book that makes kids thing about real issues, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, etc. These aren't abstract problems, these are things millions of Americans deal with every year, in the case of abortion by laying waste to a Holocaust-shaming number of innocent lives in favor of totally guilty lives going on as they damned-well please.

If you consider everything and still decide a 13 year old should be able to have an abortion without her parents even knowing about it (even while the law requires parental consent for ear piercing, tattoos, even a dental cleaning), fine. But from what I heard, it sounds like 'The Giver' is a book that encourages kids to think about this shit, to really think about what it means to be alive or dead, comfortable or miserable, empowered or oppressed. I can't think a teenager pondering these things is a bad thing, even if it grosses out some debutant wannabe Mom in Blue Springs, MO.

What about the slavery sections of Pynchon's 'V.' and 'Mason & Dixon?' Those are visceral, grotesque images, but they are not gratuitous, they are there to make you think about your relationship with the world, with people, and your 'moral relativism.' That last being something conservative scolds seem to thing originated with modern liberals misinterpreting Einstein, but which really boils down to what you value life's inevitable trade-offs at.[/QUOTE]

When I read things like this it just pisses me off. The Giver was the best book I ever read in middle school. People are morons and these are the people in today's society that need to be "released".

To me, it's seems as though there is way too much overprotection of young adults in America (perhaps the world, but mainly here), which often leads to the young adults falling into the so-called "pitfalls" of society due to lack of understanding, especially on the part of the parents. The "lets shield our children from all the bad things" approach just isn't cutting it, folks.

Total fucking shame.

WOW, banning books is really quite ridiculous. I can see a community "filtering" the school curriculum MAYBE, but banning turns that woman exactly into the kind of person The Giver is warning us about. Not to mention that Lois Lowry is a LONG established young adult author --- Like Newberry Medal caliber, my sister teaches middle school english with some of her stuff. How sad. If any of you haven't read this book, DO IT. I read it once a year.

To Jonas!!!

Here's the news story...I found it online

[url]http://www.examiner.net/cgi-bin/smart_search/cqcgi/@exa_stories.env?CQ_SESSION_KEY=LUXXKTCDSZJW&CQ_QUERY_HANDLE=126711&CQ_CUR_DOCUMENT=2&CQ_DTF_DOC_TEXT=YES&CQ_DOC_MARKUP_STYLE=7[/url]

[QUOTE=jimmer116]Here's the news story...I found it online

[url]http://www.examiner.net/cgi-bin/smart_search/cqcgi/@exa_stories.env?CQ_SESSION_KEY=LUXXKTCDSZJW&CQ_QUERY_HANDLE=126711&CQ_CUR_DOCUMENT=2&CQ_DTF_DOC_TEXT=YES&CQ_DOC_MARKUP_STYLE=7[/url][/QUOTE]

thanks for that jimmer116

I think I'll go throw up now

[QUOTE=Thag]thanks for that jimmer116

I think I'll go throw up now :)[/QUOTE]

I know...I felt the same way. Everyday someone reinforces my belief that people are stupid and shouldn't be allowed to live.

[QUOTE=jimmer116]Here's the news story...I found it online

[url]http://www.examiner.net/cgi-bin/smart_search/cqcgi/@exa_stories.env?CQ_SESSION_KEY=LUXXKTCDSZJW&CQ_QUERY_HANDLE=126711&CQ_CUR_DOCUMENT=2&CQ_DTF_DOC_TEXT=YES&CQ_DOC_MARKUP_STYLE=7[/url][/QUOTE]

I've never read the book, but I think this woman who wants it banned should be banned from living.

Fuck her!

I read that book when I was in Grade 7 and it really changed alot for me. It really made me think, as well as other kids in the class, and also taught me about reading. it also made me question things. Abortion, forced pregancy, child farming, "parental units", no colours, it was a beautiful book. Its like an introduction for a person into Orwells 1984 or Brave New World. In some ways, I like it better, because it focuses more on the controlled family, a constructed family.

"A four-year or doctorate doesn't guarantee you are truly educated. But an education in the sciences, writing, mathematics/ finances and architecture will make a strong foundation," she said. "This book only offers one thing, ideas on the destruction of humanity."

FUCK HER!

Sorry guys...I didn't know that link would expire. Here's one that hopefully won't expire.

[url]http://www.examiner.net/stories/120704/new_120704008.shtml[/url]

Anyway, I dug out my copy of The Giver and I thought I would point out that Lowry dedicated this book "For all the [i]children[/i] to whom we intrust the future". So bascially this woman and every other person to have challenged this book is saying that Lois Lowry is a sick person for writing a book like this and then dedicating it to children...since she obviously intended [u]children[/u] to read it. GAHH STUPID STUPID PERSON! As t-shirt hell says "Stupidity Causes Cancer"...I hope it does and I hope she has it.

Wow, The Giver. I read that in like 6th grade, and I never realized it but the philosophy of that book has really stayed with me ever since. I only read it once, and now that I think about it, it might be one of the best books I've ever read.
What kind of dumb bitch would want to keep something like that away from her child? What a stupid whore, she's just another goddamn housewife trying to make a fuss over something. I forgot that there were such mindless people in the world.

[QUOTE]"No part of this book should be analyzed as to whether it is right or wrong, good or bad," she said. "It's all twisted, lewd and in every way inappropriate."[/QUOTE]

I'd read it, but there's no way it could be as good as she makes it sound.

btw, is it OK for a teacher to force a kid to read a book that the kids parents don't want him to read? It's not like anyone is talking about banning the book, just taking it off the curriculum.

[QUOTE=sick girl]I forgot that there were such mindless people in the world.[/QUOTE]

I wish I could have such moments in my life...

[QUOTE=monfreid]Well if someone doesn't want kids to read a book, banning it is the stupidest thing to do. Is she trying to make it a classic or something?[/QUOTE]

Of course. I'm convinced 'Catcher in the Rye' would be lucky to be so much as in print today if it hadn't been for the opposition it faced from cunts like this. And some important books of its era are barely hanging on, probably in part for failing to get a rise out of parents. It's sad when the book burning crowd is an essential marketing tool.

[QUOTE=vandamage]To me, it's seems as though there is way too much overprotection of young adults in America (perhaps the world, but mainly here), which often leads to the young adults falling into the so-called "pitfalls" of society due to lack of understanding, especially on the part of the parents. The "lets shield our children from all the bad things" approach just isn't cutting it, folks.

Total fucking shame.[/QUOTE]

It's worse than you may realize. A couple of years ago I went to help out on Field Day at my daughter's grade school. There were no ribbons awarded, and no competitive events were allowed. They had a moon walk, which I have to admit is cooler than a sack race, but more of a carnival thing than a Field Day thing. The other events were all relays with all of a class on one team competing against...nothing. The teachers were just egging them on with things like the 'sponge relay' to see how much water than can move from a barrel to a bucket a spongeful at a time. I asked what happened to sack races, soft ball throws, high jump (I always sucked in athletics as a kid, but I loved the high jump because you could just throw your body at it and know you had a safe landing ahead). The district, it turns out, has a policy that's designed, as I understand it, to make sure no one feels bad about losing, that they can have no competitive events.

Then, at the end of the year, they gave awards to the kids for shit like perfect attendance (they did that when I was a kid) and for pretty much anything else they could think of. Literally, every kid was guaranteed an award or two. Some kids got three or four, and a kid who plays with my daughter was freaking out because the girl next to her got three and she only got one. Some preperation for life, eh? They seem to think this will magiclly prevent a Columbine type scenario, but to me they're guaranteeing more Columbine type scenarios...

And tonight I went to my daughter's third grade holiday musical, with the them 'Americans All,' which among other things, included a tribute to Native Americans so ham handed and Politically Correct it was sickening, a tribute to African Americans (though it was dubbed 'South Africa,' making me wonder, before or after Aparthied?), particularly for having only one black kid on the stage--and she wasn't the one who got the speaking part. And that doesn't even touch on the crap they've been feeding my daughter and her classmates about Israelis, Koreans, Irish, etc.

My first reacton was that it was just stupid, but (and this is not the first time I've had this thought at a grade-school play/musical since my kids hit school), I realized it's just part of the programming. This is the kinder, gentler Cultural Revolution.

[QUOTE=monfreid]I'd read it, but there's no way it could be as good as she makes it sound.

btw, is it OK for a teacher to force a kid to read a book that the kids parents don't want him to read? It's not like anyone is talking about banning the book, just taking it off the curriculum.[/QUOTE]

Yes, I know banning is a strong term for it, but I saw the TV interview and you could tell this sorority chick cum Mommy would just love it if the publisher and writer were shipped off to a gulag. The way she explained herself, not just the words, but the calculated mannerisms and tone of voice (calculated to make her same sane despite the evidence), she didn't just think it should be off the syllabus, she thought it was something harmful that children should be protected from in general, and maybe adults too. Kind of the approach of, 'That's okay for consenting adults, though you'd have to wonder about the [I]adults[/I] we're talking about if they'd trouble with this garbage.'

And yeah, I figured the book couldn't be nearly as good as she made it sound, but it did sound like a book that made kids think about euthanasia and abortion and whatnot. My own positions on that are pretty hard-core pro-life, but I've looked at aborted fetuses and 'assisted suicide' from both sides now, and this woman, whatever her view, apparently objects to people looking at either side.

When I was in 9th grade, the class read 'Lord of the Flies.' I asked my teacher if she found the hog-hunt sequence analagous to sexual conquest. I didn't quite have those words at 15, but I managed to ask in a way that didn't get me kicked out of class, and she sluffed it off. Then, after, she taps my shoulder, and tells me, 'We don't teach that aspect of it at this grade level, but you're not the first to make that connection. You're thinking.'

That was, I think, the first time a teacher encouraged me directly in terms of independent thought. That's the thing that frustrates me about both liberal and conservative types who get their noses out of joint when it comes to teaching kids to decide for themselves, not be pre-programmed robots.

I just listened to the audio book of 'A Man in Full' by Tom Wolfe, and there's a comedy of errors angle he works so beautifully: when Conrad gets sent to jail, he asks his wife to get him a mass market paperback of an action-adventure novel, 'The Stoics Game,' and she grudgingly has the book store send it, and bitches that it cost her $30. I thought, the book store is ripping off the prison trade, whereby prisoners can only receive books shipped by book retailers, right? But then, when the package comes, it's 'The Stoics,' the complete extant writings of the Roman Stoics. And this becomes important in the book.

Anyway, clever classics references aside, I was through the grocery store this evening after the musical, and I looked at the rack of mass market books available. I've read some Tom Clancy, Stephen King, etc., so I know what's in some of the books. But, I couldn't help thinking, what if the 'Great Books' were here instead. Or mixed in, like rabbit shit in the dog food? Would society become less obviously TV-oriented?

For that matter, I just read Toby Young's memoir, and was astounded to find out that as recently as 1983, [I]Vanity Fair[/I] published a novella in its entirety. That made me flash back to the forward to 'Bagombo Snuffbox,' where Kurt Vonnegut points out that he made the switch from P.R. hack at GE to 'writer' after earning more off his short stories than GE was paying him. What magazines were paying him so well for his short stories? [I]Cosmopolitan[/I], for one. [I]Red Book[/I], too. This was before TV really took over, but think about how much less of a play on words [I]Cosmopolitan [/I] would be if they still publsihed short stories by cutting edge writers? I realize Vonnegut is no longer the cutting edge, but in 1950...

wow after reading that.... what does she think? that all 13 year old children arent ready to experience those things? wtf is wrong with her i laughed after reading that
LONG LIVE THE GIVER!

thanks XD

I wasn't the biggest fan of The Giver, but I get really pissed whenever anything is banned.

Actually, my teacher read that to us in 6th grade, I was...10 years old, I didn't kill anyone over it. This is garb. Any petitions, feel free to link.

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I protest not getting a signature by writing this after each post.

i hated this book then, and i still harbor an ill will towards it... but it was mostly becuase of my teacher... and if i recall i just didnt like how the book was written.... i'm never impressed with the crappy books everyone has to read in classes. theres always better examples of whatever they're trying to teach... anyway i hate this book.

Fucking Religious Femenist always fuck things up!

Ever since they got the right to vote they have been nothing but trouble!

First the antialcohol law (And we all know what happen there) and now this!

Shoot thouse bitches I say!

They will work has a sacrifice to give a lesson to the rest loud moth low brain fat fugly mothers!