Book Banning

[plinsenmayer at yahoo.com]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C925
From: plinsenmayer
Subject: Book Banning
Reply To: [Yahoo! #920] Re: April Fools, huh?
Date: 4/4/00 9:23 am  (ET)

<Okay, Lord of the Flies, Catcher in the Rye, and Huckleberry Finn I knew
about. But Little House on the Prairie?!? You're kidding, right? What
was the argument there?>

No, I'm definitely *not* kidding!!! It's been banned by a number of
schools and libraries on the grounds that it conveys a negative (and
racist) portrayal of Native Americans.

I'm writing a biography for adults of the author, Laura Ingalls Wilder,
and recently gave a presentation on Wilder's life and books at the school
where my sister teaches. I made sure ahead of time that none of the
teachers were going to object to that book being in my presentation. It's
actually *that* controversial!

Of course, my view of it is that people are trying to be revisionist
historians when they ban an older book written from an autobiographical
point of view such as LHotP. Wilder lived through those times (when
Indians were Indians, not "Native Americans")and she wrote it in 1935
when she was 68 yrs old. I hate when people try to put 1990s political
correctness into everything!

Penny