Morning links: Book challenge edition.

  • Grand Junction, Colorado: The use of Ender's Game in the sixth-grade curriculum at Orchard Mesa Middle School was challenged due to profanity and "passages about characters renouncing religion and killing each other". The challenge committee voted to retain the book, but the district has stated that they're working to provide alternate assignments in case of future objections.
  • Rockford, Ohio: A challenge committee has been formed in response to an objection to the use of The Freedom Writers Diary in ninth-grade classrooms. 
  • Reedley, California: Excerpts from Black Swan Green are "educationally appropriate", but won't be used in freshman classes this year at Reedley High School. Challengers were concerned about the profanity and sexual content in Mitchell's book—which is not available in the school library—and while none of that objectionable material actually appeared in the excerpts, but there were concerns that the "excerpts would lead students to search out the entire book". Which, wow. Imagine that, kids reading stuff they find so compelling that they seek out the entire book! THAT'S TOTALLY THE WORST THING EVER THE WORLD IS GOING TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET I SWOON!
  • Peshawar, Pakistan: A chapter in Pashto editions of a Grade 10 textbook will be removed, due to concerns that while "the material given in the chapter was based on reality", it might "create [a] bad impression of the state among the students".