Banned book week

Just in time for this annual event sponsored by the American Library Association, some college professor (!) in Missouri is urging schools to ban Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (a local author) and 2 other books:

In September, a Missouri State University professor, Wesley Scroggins, in an opinion column in the Missouri News-Leader, encouraged schools to ban “Speak” and two other books, which he said “should be classified as soft pornography.”  Scroggins called for also banning Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five” and “Twenty Boy Summer” by Sarah Ockler.

A full-page ad in The New York Times last Thursday encouraged people to read Anderson’s book “Speak” and decide for themselves if it should be banned from young readers.  “Speak” tells the story of a teen girl struggling to cope after being raped at a party. The newspaper ad was placed by the book’s publisher, Penguin Group.