When should books like ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’ be banned?

Know what we haven't had in a while? A good old fashioned book banning.

Where we get together and decide our children shouldn't read something because it's offensive or vulgar or promotes (or simply references) activities and lifestyles of which we don't approve.

Thankfully, society rarely has to wait long for someone to read something they don't like and call for the mob.

A Kamloops, B.C., father announced this week that he wanted the local school board to remove “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” from its curriculum for vulgar content and its pornographic nature.

"The amount of vulgarity and the amount of pornography was just overwhelming," Dean Audet told a local television station this week, adding he found 41 points of offense after reading the book.

The issue received further attention when The Province newspaper joined the debate. The father of four, whose oldest child had been assigned the book for his Grade 10 class, told the newspaper he'd fight the school board "for another 10 years" if they didn't do away with the material.

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“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” was written by Stephen Chbosky and is a "coming of age" story that addresses issues such as rape, suicide, molestation, homosexuality and drug use.

It was first published by MTV in 1999, and was made into a movie in 2012. And it has as history of clashing with high school curriculum censors over that period.

The Banned Book Awareness website notes that it was challenged in Virginia in 2003, by a group called Parents Against Bad Books.

It was removed from the reading list of a New York school sociology course in 2004 for offensive content, and challenged in Texas the following year by a group that opposed gay themes in library reading choices.

The novel survived challenges in Wisconsin and Illinois high schools and was kept in the young adults section of a Wisconsin public library despite a campaign to have it moved to the adult section.

According to the American Library Association, The Perks of Being a Wallflower was among the top 10 most challenged books every year between 2004 and 2009.

Other frequently challenged books? The Harry Potter series, “The Catcher in the Rye”, “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Twilight.”

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The Kamloops school board has said a panel will read and review the book and decide whether it should be removed from the curriculum. But it is on the list of materials approved by the Educational Resource Acquisition Consortium (ERAC), so an actual ban is somewhat unlikely.

The group evaluates curriculum material for most of the province, ensuring that approved material "support the learning outcomes of the curriculum, assist students in making connections between what they learn in school and its practical application in their lives," and be developmentally and age appropriate.

The evaluation process also takes into consideration societal values and standards, and how materials encourage understanding and promote social attitudes and respect for diversity and human rights.

As long as a novel does all of that, in a responsible way, there should be no conversation about banning it from schools or libraries. If an individual doesn't approve of the topic, or the way it is addressed, they are free to put the book down. If it is a student, or the parent of a student, they are free to request an alternative assignment.

ERAC reviewed "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and called the book an engaging novel that "deals with many of the difficult issues that face teens today, but in a way that is both genuine and innocent."

Audet’s child has already been assigned a new book and does not have to read the offending novel. But there are still students in Grade 10 out there, reading a book that references the toughest issues young adults of their age might face. And it should stay that way.

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