Kurt Vonnegut's Classic SF Novel Slaughterhouse Five Banned from Missouri Public High School Library

[Forkboy]

A Missouri public school board voted four to zero to remove two books out of a proposed three from the library of Republic High School Monday. One of them was Kurt Vonnegut’s science fiction novel Slaughterhouse Five. Four members were absent for the late evening vote.

The 1969 novel uses a plot involving time travel and space aliens to communicate a powerful anti-war message Slaughterhouse Five and is part of the curriculum of many schools across the United States. Publisher Del Rey even offers a teacher’s guide for the book.

The book, along with Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler, were pulled from the shelves after being challenged by local resident Wesley Scroggins, who argued that they, along with a proposed third – Laura Hale Anderson’s Speak , an award-winning novel about date rape – contradicted Biblical principles. Superintendent Vern Minor stated in an article for the News-Leader that ultimately the books were pulled because they were considered age-inappropriate.

According to the American Library Association, this is not the first time the book has been banned or challenged. In 1973 the book was burned in Drake, North Dakota.

http://sf-fantasy.suvudu.com/2011/07/so-it-goes-kurt-vonneguts-classic-sf-novel-slaughterhouse-five-banned-from-missouri-public-high-school-library-shelves.html

[Rageneau]

1. Too bad Kurt isn't here to see this. He would be SOOOO tickled.

As it is, I'm sure he's smiling down from heaven at the fools he left behind.

[fishwax]

2. ugh

:puke:
:grr:

[LWolf]

3. Speak is a big hit with my 8th graders.

I haven't, and can't, assign it in middle school, but we discuss books they've chosen to read on their own, and this one comes up a lot. The girls really relate. It's got the peer pressure, the social bullying, that they have faced or may face.

Slaughterhouse 5 not so much, although it's an old favorite of mine.

I haven't heard of the other book.

All it takes to ban books in schools is allowing those likely to ban books to be elected to the school board.

[sadbear]

4. What a great way to bring attention to one of the 20th Century's greatest novels

You know there will some kids who pick it up and read it just because someone told them they can't.

[Blue-Jay]

5. Dear Republic High School,

This is for you:

[arcane1]

11. *toast*

:toast:

[rationalcalgarian]

18. Ha-ha! Good one!

Couldn't have said it... err.. drawn it better myself!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Trajan]

21. My avatar for years now ....

Nobody has ever mentioned it ... Ha !

[arcane1]

6. Off-topic: As a KV fan, that's one of my least favorite books of his

I think "Cat's Cradle" and "Galapagos" are much better, and are titles I would want to see in school libraries more than "S5".

On-topic: How weak are your principles (and your god) if you cannot even be exposed to anything else? IT sounds willy to say "this goes against our principles" when you have not actually read it.

That being said, there's a difference between a book being available in the library and a book that's required reading. If the latter, and some child's parents object to it, I think it's possible to make accommodations for them to an extent. But only for them; they should not be able to dictate what the entire class reads. Personally, I think would would strengthen their faith of nothing else. Hell, the Amish send their teenagers loose into meth-lab trailer parks to test their faith!

[lunasun]

14. I think "Cat's Cradle" and "Galapagos" are much better

Cat's Cradle & Sirens of Titan
R my favs
Hope kids get interested in KV just cuz of the ban!

[Electric Monk]

20. Cat's Cradle is in my top 10

[Forkboy]

28. Galapagos was the first book of his that I read.

Which was a good way to start off, as it's one of his best, imo. I was in my mid-20's and was in the right frame of mind to get into Vonnegut, and I'm so happy I did. His books have changed me a lot.

I also love Bluebeard, which is the only novel to ever make me cry, and I mean really cry (when he reveals the painting that Karabekian has been working on throughout the novel I just flat out broke down). Slaughterhouse 5 is the only book of his that I've only read once, so I agree it's not his best, though still better than 90% of the output from other authors. :)

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. I haven't read Galapagos, but the important thing about Slaughterhouse Five is its setting

The amount of real history in it takes it outside the simple Science Fiction category.

I can't actually remember what in it would be 'unbiblical'. The sex in the zoo? I don't remember it being in the least explicit.

[spanone]

7. shame on us

[REP]

8. "Get out of the road, you dumb motherfucker."

That's the line in Slaughterhouse Five that's used to justify its banning.

I think it's the questioning of the Allies moral superiority in WWII that causes it to be banned.

[Drale]

9. Last time our local school board tryed to ban a book,

they would not listen to anyone, until a really really angry parent throw a chair across the room. Was it right? I can't say but it got them to realize that we were serious.

[arcane1]

13. Sometimes it only takes one squeaky wheel

All the more reason why we have to direct our focus on local elections to the same degree we take the nationals. Talk to people in your community about things that are happening in your actual community- the school boards, the district supervisors, the mayors, the governors, the state senate, the judges, the sheriffs,the district attorneys.

In supermarket lines; in elevators; hanging out with friends; the water cooler; the neighbors; the child's birthday parties; the dentist... you get the idea :)

[lukasahero]

10. Oh the irony. Eom

[Gabi Hayes]

12. just watched "Howl," starring James Franco as Ginsberg (!!!!)

very interesting, including animations during the actual reading of the poem

centered around the obscenity trial of Ferlinghetti, who published it

taken word for word from court transcripts, an inspiring contrast between bluenosed repressionists and an artist struggling for freedom of expression

the judge's verdict was masterfully written, as was the defense attorney's....both inspirationally so

[Octafish]

15. As good a book as ever written.

From Tralfamador to Dresden, from Pink Cadillacs to Montana Wildhack, the work illustrates how the answers are peace and love.

[HappyMe]

16. Banning books?

sigh! I thought we had moved well past this. What a frickin shame.

[Electric Monk]

17. Any book worth burning is a book worth reading.

That's been 100% true so far (in my experience) when some mob wants to burn some book, and this is no exception.

[TrogL]

19. When I taught a lady tried to have a book banned because it had a witch in it

The book being "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", one of the greatest Christian allegories ever written. She wanted a book about angels.

The principal handled it well.

Principal: Have you read the book?
Lady: No, why would I want to read something sinful.
Principal: Get out.

[Major Hogwash]

22. The book banning craze recirculates about every 20 years or so, it seems.

Slaughterhouse-Five is a complex book. It was in the junior high library that I went to and I had heard that Kurt Vonnegut was a great writer, so I checked it out.
I tried to read it twice, once when I was in the 8th grade and again in the 9th grade. I couldn't get past the first 2 chapters, I just gave up. It was just too tough for me to wrap my head around at the time.

[Zookeeper]

23. Lol! I'm surprised the Principal didn't get fired. Good for him! n/t

[Enthusiast]

24. I must applaud the principal,

the principal has principle.

[SpiralHawk]

25. Wow - Know Nothings are running the show

dangerous

[CBGLuthier]

26. age-inappropriate

because some of these kids are about to turn 18 and we need them to feed america's war machine.

[Forkboy]

30. +1

[dissidentboomer]

27. That's very sad. Great novel. If these brutish fascists think

that the novel questions the allies' "moral superiority" during the war they are projecting what Vonnegut intended. It simply provides another view of a terrible but necessary war and shows how, during war, men will get out of control, at times, and slaughter innocents and even their own. Nothing that is directly about the war in the novel is untrue. Vonnegut lived through being captured at the "bulge", prison camp in Dresden, and the horrible, militarily unnecessary fire bombing of the city.

Sadly, these "educators" have done precisely what the people we were fighting during world war II would have done - ban books - especially those that contain the raw, uncomfortable truth.

[AntiFascist]

33. This shows that the banners are on the side of the fascists, pure and simple...

Howard W. Campbell, Jr. to be precise.

[edhopper]

29. And so it goes...

[hifiguy]

31. I read that Vonnegut novel in the 9th grade

at age 15. Loved it even though I didn't get all of it until I read it again a couple of years later. The "subversive" stuff I did get, and right away. :) "Slaughterhouse" sent me down the road to more Vonnegut, Bradbury, Tolkein and Orwell. Thankfully I was well prepared when I finally encountered Ayn Rand in my early 20s. In the words of Dorothy Parker, Rand's books are not to be tossed aside lightly; they should be flung with great force.

[Forkboy]

34. Dorothy was clearly a woman of great wisdom.

:)

[KamaAina]

32. Maybe they can replace it with Fahrenheit 451

:grr: