Here we go again. Parents are upset with language or a specific word in the books their children are reading at school. This time, as in many other instances nationwide, the offender is the N-word.
Darryl and Alytrice Brown, who are black, want Mildred Taylor's novel, The Land, and Vicki Grove's novel, The Starplace, removed from the accelerated reading list at Turner Elementary School in Tampa. Their daughter, 11-year-old Ashyaa, who is in the gifted program, complained that both books contain the N-word.
In their misguided effort to protect their daughter from a word, these parents would deprive every child at Turner Elementary, now and in the future, of the opportunity to read these two excellent novels. I read both three years ago when I wrote about an attempt in Tuscaloosa, Ala., to remove the novel Summer of My German Soldier from a 10th-grade reading list.
As in many other instances nationwide, the Browns have not read the books in question. The stark irony here, at least to me, is that 44-year-old Darryl Brown is a doctoral student in education at the University of South Florida.
Source: St. Petersburg Times (Bill Maxwell)
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