Fla. Mom Cracks Down on School's Sexually Explicit Required Reading
by Jim Brown
September 23, 2005
(AgapePress) - Some required reading at a Florida high school has come under scrutiny from parents who say the material is pornographic. Students in the International Baccalaureate Program at De Land High School are being asked to read a book called Cracking India, a novel by Bapsi Sidwha. The story is told by a little girl who grows from age four to eight during her narrative and who, at one point in the story, is involved in oral sex with her older male cousin.
When parent Vicki Reed objected to the book and asked that her daughter be given an alternate reading assignment, she was initially denied. However, school administrators finally granted the mother's request. She says some in her school community have misunderstood her motivations.
"There's criticism that says I'm trying to be a book banner, or trying to decide everybody else's moral beliefs, and that's not in fact true," Reed says. "I do believe, though, that this material contains information that is way too graphic and way too, in my mind, pornographic for children under 18 -- period."
And Reed says she is not the only parent who is concerned with Cracking India's presence in the classroom. "I've received many phone calls from parents with the same kind of objections," she notes, "but now it's gotten to the point that other parents have also confiscated the book. So there are several children in the class now that are looking to do alternate assignments."
However, the Florida mom has not found the honors program instructor at the high school to be particularly helpful in the matter. "I have to say, even though an alternate assignment's being given, the teacher is certainly not going out of her way for this alternate assignment," the parent says.
Nevertheless, Reed insists the book's sexual content made it inappropriate for her daughter and, in her opinion, inappropriate for use as a high school course required reading assignment. She now plans to ask the local school board to have Cracking India barred from classroom use completely.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
