A letter I sent yesterday to a Waterloo, Iowa paper. It deals with school book-banning and the importance of literature.

Area school book clampdown contemptible

by

DC Larson

Re "Waterloo pulls book from classrooms, sparking debate (4/8):

What this reprehensible attack on literature, student thought, and teacher discretion demonstrates is that, even in 2015, we are not safe from intolerant lackwits abusing authority.

According to the article, the pivotal perpetrator was Debbie Lee, executive director of the Waterloo School District's K-12 curriculum. Lee pushed on area teachers an obtuse, tyrannical, and anti-intellectual standard: "If you ask yourself if maybe a text might be controversial, then it probably is. So, don't use it."

Lee reportedly claimed her clampdown did not constitute censorship, as she merely dictated that the disputed novel be immediately withdrawn from all district teaching plans. It remains available from school libraries.

I will not here pretend to fathom the thinking that for a government-run public school official to arbitrarily pronounce a novel to be 'off limits,' effectively chaining teachers, is somehow not censorship.

Among banned classics that have been attacked in other school systems as controversial are "Huckleberry Finn," "The Diary of Anne Frank," and "Catcher In the Rye." Clearly, finger-wagging bluenoses make poor judges of literary worth.

I do not have children in the local school system. But I am a journalist and author. And I have held the printed word as sacred since first being taught to appreciate it by my mother, herself an Iowa author.

Books can give readers access to perspectives and experiences beyond their personal circumstances. It can provide information crucial to understanding ourselves and others.

Yes, some life topics can cause discomfort. But that is hardly cause for stifling literature; indeed, examining and explaining such is one of literature's vital potentials!

All of us, adults and children, alike, can take comfort in the knowledge that opponents of literature, educators' liberty, and our own intellectual freedom never ultimately carry the day.

DC Larson is a writer living in Waterloo.