Tucson Region

'Objectionable' book in some Tucson schools

A book available in some local middle and high schools describes a "detailed scene of oral sex," the state's education superintendent warned educators Tuesday. But the woman overseeing the libraries of Tucson's largest school district isn't alarmed and says the district has no plans to remove the book from its schools. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," a 1999 book by American novelist Stephen Chbosky, has been a source of controversy nationwide and came to the Arizona Department of Education's awareness after an Apache Junction grandmother complained when her granddaughter checked the book out of the school library. The book is designated as fourth-grade reading through the Accelerated Reader program, which assesses students' reading skills. "I personally find the sexual material in this book extremely objectionable," Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said in a letter to school officials across the state, pointing specifically to a forced oral sex scene. Horne advised schools to review the book but stopped short of advising them on whether to remove the text from shelves. Although not all of the Tucson Unified School District's more than 100 schools had been contacted Tuesday afternoon, the book is available in at least nine high schools and two middle schools, where students are as young as 11. Still, the revelations did not alarm Harriet Scarborough, TUSD's senior academic officer for curriculum, instruction and professional learning, who oversees school libraries. "I would balk at the word 'should,' " she said when asked if the book should be available in school libraries. "We do not practice censorship." "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" was one of the top 10 "challenged or banned books" in 2004, according to the American Library Association. The reasons listed were "homosexuality, sexual content and offensive language." Page 31 of the book describes in detail a male character forcing a female character to perform oral sex on him while the teenage narrator watches. Then the first-person narrator says: "I had to stop watching at that point because I started to feel sick, but it kept going on, and they kept doing other things, and she kept saying 'no.' Even when I covered my ears, I could still hear her say that." The book is highly popular among young readers. There are more than 1,100 reviews of it at Amazon.com. Scarborough said she supports books being made available to children so they can learn to be "critical readers," but she would not say whether she agreed with Horne's assessment of Chbosky's book or whether it was inappropriate for children. "Just because it's allowed in the library doesn't mean it's OK," she said. "I'm not saying that page is OK. You do not take a page out of context and make a reactionary decision about books." Scarborough said she plans to read the entire book and that TUSD administrators will likely discuss what, if anything, they will do next. Officials with other area school districts were looking into whether their libraries stock the book.