I now have a book that I want all the kids to read, and know they won't be bothered to do it.

The Language Police, by Diane Ravitch, gets into what sounds like the most boring subject area possible--the publishing of high school textbooks and standardized tests. I can't even imagine how to make that sound interesting to the kids upon whom these are thrust. But the book deals with the political and social pressures that have put textbook publishing in a real bind, and has led to the shrinking of students' worlds.

If I didn't work in a library, I would flatly refuse to believe this book. Honestly. Ravitch has solid credentials (if conservative ones) and it's well-researched, but could I really believe that editors are instructed to not include in a literature textbook any story in which a child behaves disrespectfully toward an adult, whether or not there is a consequence for this action? Or that a passage for a test about a blind man overcoming the difficulties involved in climbing a mountain was rejected because it implied that being blind was a handicap, and also because it wouldn't be "accessible" to people who didn't live near mountains? Or that another, about the nutritional value of peanuts, was rejected because some students might be allergic to peanuts and be confused by someone extolling their benefits?

I would very much like to not believe this. Unfortunately, I've had editorial assistants coming in, looking for short stories to include in high school textbooks. No fantasy, they say. No science fiction. No, we can't include one that shows a gun. Definitely nothing that involves sex. No, no... that one doesn't have enough minority representation.

And so on.

So I knew, or thought I did, what sorts of limitations might be there.

But Ravitch was on a team put together by President Clinton to create a national test (it never materialized), and when several passages--including the ones about the blind man and the peanuts--were rejected by a bias and sensitivity review board, she got interested, and she started digging. It's quite a Byzantine system that binds up the textbook publishers.

Although Ravitch is somewhat conservative, the right wing is savaged in this book. Would-be censors on the right, apparently, have issues with various ideas appearing. Evolution is controversial, so it is not to appear on standardized tests or be mentioned in non-science textbooks. Yes, that means no excerpts from Jurassic Park. No fantasy (fear of occult). No mentions of abortion, disrespectful kids, you name it. Where the conflict in the stories is supposed to come from is a mystery to me.

Oh, but it doesn't stop with the right, because a body bind really doesn't work when it's only one-sided. No, the left also gets into the act, asking that Aesop's fables become more gender balanced, that women not be shown in "stereotypical" roles, that references to past discrimination are carefully shielded. (Ravitch cites a mention of slaves and the class system in Ancient Egypt, which was to be re-written to make it sound like everyone was on equal footing or some such thing.) The Spanish no longer conquered anyone in Latin America (the various native peoples are just mysteriously no longer in power). Not being able to see doesn't make it more difficult to climb a mountain.

This, in my opinion (and Ravitch's), is double-plus ungood.

I mean, no wonder kids are bored as hell with their school reading.

We just went through Banned Books Week, during which I was happy to pass along the information that it's very, very difficult to actually ban a book in America. Almost everything on those lists from the ALA is just challenged, and is usually popular and easy to get one's hands on. But textbooks? They're controlled very tightly, and publishers censor themselves in order to make large sales to the states that have statewide adoptions (Texas and California are the biggest).

I can't really blame the publishers. They're not in a charity business; they want to make money. And the pressure groups not only sue them for large sums, but they block sales to states by threatening political action, and of course there's the threat of suits against the schools if little Johnny is offended by a passage about legumes. I suppose we could always counter-sue--press suits against groups trying to gut our national literature, threaten lawsuits against publishers caught bowlderdizing classic texts, and so on. Caught between a rock and a hard place--if they'll get sued no matter what they do--publishers might decide to just do what they want to do, which, I assume, is to publish. But that strikes me as both expensive and mean-spirited. Unfortunately, I can't think of any other good ideas, short of the government putting severe limits on litigation. Which isn't necessarily a bad idea, but I don't see it coming down the pike any time soon.

And in some cases, I can almost sympathize--in the day when Huck Finn was published, the word most often cited as a reason for keeping the book out of the classroom had much less impact than it does now, and that means that it may well cause much worse feelings than it would have at the time. The fact that Twain's novel is against racism--quite decidedly--may get lost behind the bad feeling of seeing "the N word" on page after page... and yet, that word was out there. It was once freely used. The fact that a boy who uses it as freely as Huck does is still able to learn to see Jim as a human being and a mentor is exactly what makes the novel extraordinary. And I do love to see women in non-traditional roles, kicking butt. Or men who love to be with their kids and take care of them. Nothing wrong with seeing that. It's just when women are always the ones going out to work and men are always the ones being sensitive that I want to start hitting my head on something.

And then there are the things that I just plain don't get.

No speculative fiction? No fairy tales? No anthropomorphism? Kids--including very religious kids--have had these kinds of stories for centuries. Now they're suddenly dangerous?

And what's with the no-disrespect-shown sort of thing? I could at least see the discomfort if the disrespectful kid always got his way and was presented as right. I still wouldn't ban it, but I could see it. But no character is allowed to be seen doing this, even if it's clearly presented as wrong, because some child might emulate the "wrong" character, thinking it's glamorous. How can you even get to the moral of the story, or teach that something's wrong if that's what you're after, without naming the thing you're talking about?

Regional bias. I got into this in an earlier post, but finishing up the book has still not helped me figure out why in the name of heaven this is even an issue. The point of reading is to open up your head and be able to imagine things that you haven't seen. By regional bias standards, I shouldn't have been able to read Nancy Drew, as she wasn't from a small farming town, had lots of money, and drove a car. I couldn't possibly have enjoyed Little Men, which--along with the cardinal sin of having more boys than girls present and showing Daisy enjoying her play kitchen--took place in a New England boarding school in the 19th century. I guess I couldn't have obsessed over A Separate Peace either, for similar reasons. I've never been to Australia, or been the victim of an invasion, so John Marsden's Tomorrow series is out. I've certainly never been on an uncharted tropical island, so there goes Lord of the Flies. No American child could enjoy Harry Potter, simply because most of them have never been to Scotland and never will be, and Harry doesn't visit the States.

I don't get it.

Grrr.

Anyway, check out The Language Police. But put cushions on the desk, because you'll get a crease in your forehead from so much :headdesk:ing.