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CRACKING INDIA (Milkweed) by Bapsi Sidhwa (current ISBN 0915943565; new ISBN

1-57131-048-7 ships Jan) is in the midst of a furor in Florida. A high school in

DeLand, Florida, has assigned the book to 11th grade students as part of the

International Baccalaureate curriculum. A mother of a girl in that class is

objecting to a passage in the book she says is pornographic. It is a passage on

pages 172-173 in Chapter 21 that describes an encounter between the nine year

old narrator and her cousin.

 

Several articles have run in the local Florida papers, including Orlando

Sentinel below, and on a TV station there. The school is proceeding with its

process of reviewing a book that has been challenged.

 

 

 

DeLand mother: Ban book

'Cracking India: A Novel' is too sexually explicit for high-school students, she

says.

 

Erika Hobbs | Sentinel Staff Writer

Posted September 13, 2005

 

A DeLand mother upset over what she calls " pornography " is attempting to block

Volusia County's gifted high-school students from reading a novel about India's

violent partition in 1947.

 

Vikki Reed wants DeLand High School's 11th-grade International Baccalaureate

English class to stop reading Cracking India: A Novel by Bapsi Sidhwa. Her

daughter Rebekka, who is in the college-preparatory program, was supposed to

read it this week. Reed has forbidden her from doing so.

 

" I think that anything this sexually explicit should not be mandatory and should

not be handed out to our kids, " Reed said.

 

District officials have declined her request to halt the classroom instruction,

because other books were available for her daughter to read, they said. In the

meantime, Reed is following the district's nine-step process to request that the

School Board ban the book from reading lists.

 

Efforts to ban books have met mixed success across Central Florida.

 

In February, a Polk County elementary school banned Anastasia Again! by Lois

Lowry, which referred to beer and Playboy magazine. In 1997, the Osceola School

Board removed two books that discussed puberty from its library shelves. In the

past 15 years, Volusia has rejected about a half-dozen attempts to ban books,

including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou and Deenie by Judy

Blume.

 

Cracking India is a young girl's coming-of-age story set in Lahore, a city now

in modern-day Pakistan. The girl, Lenny, witnesses her country's political and

social upheaval, which also tears apart her family.

 

At issue is a two-page scene that describes Lenny's rebuffing of an older

cousin's sexual proposition. The passage references oral sex.

 

" This is pornographic material, " Reed said. " I want to decide what my daughter

reads. "

 

DeLand Principal Mitch Moyer explained that leaders of the

international-baccalaureate program said last summer that students needed a

better understanding of Indian-Pakistani relationships because India is a

growing economic force and Pakistan plays a key role in international politics.

The announcement influenced the school's decision to choose the book from the IB

reading list.

 

Parents are warned weeks in advance that students study college-level material

in the program and are sent the student's book list, Moyer said. Parents must

sign the letter and return it to the school.

 

" The beauty of public schools is that they are in full view, and nothing is

hidden. I respect a parent's right to question, " he said.

 

Reed said she signed the letter. But she said she wasn't aware of the

questionable passage until Rebekka and an older sister flipped through the novel

last week. It made for uncomfortable dinner conversation, she said.

 

" The IB program clearly didn't think it was pornographic, " said Christopher

Colwell, deputy superintendent for instructional services. The School Board will

take up the issue if Reed pursues her petition.

 

Author Sidhwa, in an interview from her Houston home, said the controversial

passage is " just high jinks. "

 

" He has hardly reached puberty, and the girl is just about nine. She dismisses

him out of hand, " she explained.

 

The encounter in her book is intended to be " very innocent " and not " obscene or

pornographic at all, " she said. Mothers in the region would dismiss it " out of

hand, " she said.

 

Volusia's challenge is the first she has heard about since the book was

published in 1991.

 

Rebekka Reed said she wants to read the book just so she can " do the assignments

and get a good grade. "

 

But the book makes her uncomfortable. " It's embarrassing to talk about. Some of

it is too graphic, " she said.

 

Erika Hobbs can be reached at 386-851-7903 or ehobbs.

Sentinel staff writer Kevin P. Connolly contributed to this report.

 

 

Copyright © 2005, Orlando Sentinel

 

 

 

War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left.

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