TIME FOR A LITTLE BOOK BANNING

One Lake Wales parent is asking Polk County school officials to ban six books by the children's author Lois Lowry, including five of the six books in her Anastasia series, as inappropriate for elementary school-age students.

Kristi Hardee, a part-time church secretary and mother of a fourth grader at Spook Hill Elementary School, said her daughter was reading the book Anastasia Krupnik, and told her teacher about what she considered "bad words" in the story. The teacher then alerted Mrs. Hardee.

How bad, you ask? From the story in the Lakeland Ledger Wednesday:

In some of the passages the main character, Anastasia, an adolescent, stuffs a bra to appear older, has a conversation with her mother about bra-snapping boys and asks a friend if she would pose nude if she were a fashion model. In another book, "Your Move J.P.," the main character had never kissed a girl but was sure the right position would come to him when it was time for a smooch.

In Polk County, complaints regarding objectionable material in books are handled by the individual school's Literature Review Committee. If the parent still objects, he/she can appeal to the School Board. In the past 24 years, there have been 40 book challenges in the district, and only three books have been removed from individual schools.

There is no policy in place to ban books from the school district at-large...and that's a good thing! One group of people should not place it's ideas or beliefs on schools.