Ban The Perks of Being a Wallflower from schools, says B.C. dad

A Kamloops, B.C., father is demanding the school district ban a book his son's high school class is reading because he says it is pornographic and unsuitable for teens.

Dean Audet wants the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower pulled off school shelves, and banned because he says students in Grade 10 shouldn't be reading a book with content this vulgar.

"Suicide by gunshot, boyfriend punches girl in the face hard, Grade 4 girl letting boys feel her breast, teenage boy having sex with a dog, and it just goes on and on and gets worse from there," says Audet.

"Watching sister and boyfriend having sex, graphic step by step instructions on how to masturbate, graphic pornographic conversation, child molestation," he adds.

While Audit finds the book pornographic and vulgar, others have described the novel by American Stephen Chbosky as a coming-of-age novel about an introverted teenager who has trouble controlling his emotions as he struggles to fit in.

Since it was first published by MTV in 1998, the New York Times bestseller has frequently been compared to The Catcher in the Rye. It has also been made into a movie.

Despite its popularity with young readers and teachers, parents in the U.S. have also attempted to ban the book from schools.

For his part Audet has asked the Kamloops School Board to pull the book from the curriculum.

"The point is, should we be feeding this to our children in high school in the public school system?" he asks.

Instead the Kamloops/Thompson School District gave his son another book to read

Superintendent Terry Sullivan says, as per its policy, the school district will make a decision on a ban after the book is reviewed by an independent committee.

"I've seen too many examples of censorship, which are applied to everyone with respect to books - many of them are classics," said Sullivan.