From Mercury News:
"I'm challenging them on their biases," said Hu, who twice before submitted Allison's semiautobiographical novel and National Book Award nominee for district approval. Even with the endorsement of a district textbook committee, the board voted it down, as it did in 2009 and 2010.
Last year, the board rejected her nomination of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America," a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about AIDS in the 1980s.
She wanted to use the books in a 12th-grade AP English class: one of the trustees who voted the books down suggested using The Color Purple instead, because it's "more uplifting".
Ah, my hometown. The big dust up when I was in school there was over Native Son. There's actually a comparatively huge Mormon population in the city, so I'm not surprised that was one of the complaints about Angels in America.
Posted by: Sara | 07 July 2012 at 06:34 PM
I realize this is a minority opinion, but I don't think it's okay to force feed people books. I'd fight to keep Laurie Halse Anderson's book Speak on the shelves in the school library or on a reading list, but I don't think it should be assigned reading. I suspect I would feel the same about Allison's work. It's really unclear from the article whether the book would be "supplemental reading" or "taught in the classroom." They say both without seeming to realize that those two aren't synonymous.
Posted by: Hope | 07 July 2012 at 09:12 PM
I know this is kind of an aside, but, um, how is "The Color Purple" more uplifting? I mean, it's a hugely important work, but a book would have to be pretty dark to make TCP look uplifting. Just sayin' . . .
Posted by: Ilanawaters | 08 July 2012 at 05:40 PM