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Queens sixth-graders no longer must read racy ‘Diary of Part-Time Indian’
Bowing to pressure from outraged parents and after inquiries from the Daily News, the principal of Public School/Middle School 114 announced the book was no longer required summer reading. ‘It was like “Fifty Shades of Grey” for kids,’ said Kelly-Ann McMullan-Preiss, who refused to let her son read the book.
Queens sixth-graders were told to read a book that talked about masturbation — until seething parents got the title pushed off the summer reading list.
Bowing to pressure from the outraged parents and after inquiries from the Daily News, the principal of Public School/Middle School 114 in Rockaway Park announced Wednesday that “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” was no longer required reading.
All incoming sixth-graders had been expected to write a graded-essay on the book, parents said.
“It’s about . . . masturbation — which is not appropriate for my child to learn at 11,” said Kelly-Ann McMullan-Preiss, 39, of Belle Harbor, who refused to let her son read the book. “It was like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ for kids.”
Lines in author Sherman Alexie’s award-winning young adult novel include: “And if God hadn’t wanted us to masturbate, then God wouldn’t have given us thumbs. So I thank God for my thumbs.”
McMullan-Preiss said she didn’t want a school assignment to dictate when she had the awkward conversation about masturbation with her son.
She planned to circulate a petition against requiring kids to read the book before the school abruptly changed its position.
Calls to PS/MS 114 were not immediately returned. A spokesman for the Department of Education, Devon Puglia, said there was no citywide required reading list. “Selected texts are school-based decisions,” he said.
But Parent Teacher Association Co-President Irene Dougherty said at least eight parents had planned to boycott the book.
“Not every child is emotionally mature enough at 11 years of age to handle this content,” Dougherty said. “It really should be a parent’s decision how much information is given to their children.”
The book, which tells the story of a Native American who transfers into an all-white high school, won the 2007 National Book Foundation award for Young People’s Literature.
“It’s a landmark work in young people’s literature,” said the foundation’s executive director Harold Augenbraum.
After the book was pulled from an Oregon classroom in 2008, Alexie defended it in the central Oregon newspaper The Bulletin.
“Everything in the book is what every kid in that school is dealing with on a daily basis, whether it’s masturbation or racism or sexism or the complications of being human,” Alexie told the newspaper. “To pretend that kids aren’t dealing with this on an hour-by-hour basis is a form of denial.”
School districts in Stockton, Miss., and Richland, Wash., banned Sherman’s memoir in 2010 and 2011.
Teri Lesesne, who teaches young adult literature at Sam Houston State University, in Huntsville, Tex., said everyone should read the book at some point in their lives.
“[But] I’m not sure I’d give it to sixth-graders,” she said. “I’m not sure that sixth-graders are young adults.”
Bowing to pressure from outraged parents and after inquiries from the Daily News, the principal of Public School/Middle School 114 announced the book was no longer required summer reading. ‘It was like “Fifty Shades of Grey” for kids,’ said Kelly-Ann McMullan-Preiss, who refused to let her son read the book.
Queens sixth-graders were told to read a book that talked about masturbation — until seething parents got the title pushed off the summer reading list.
Bowing to pressure from the outraged parents and after inquiries from the Daily News, the principal of Public School/Middle School 114 in Rockaway Park announced Wednesday that “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” was no longer required reading.
All incoming sixth-graders had been expected to write a graded-essay on the book, parents said.
“It’s about . . . masturbation — which is not appropriate for my child to learn at 11,” said Kelly-Ann McMullan-Preiss, 39, of Belle Harbor, who refused to let her son read the book. “It was like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ for kids.”
Lines in author Sherman Alexie’s award-winning young adult novel include: “And if God hadn’t wanted us to masturbate, then God wouldn’t have given us thumbs. So I thank God for my thumbs.”
McMullan-Preiss said she didn’t want a school assignment to dictate when she had the awkward conversation about masturbation with her son.
She planned to circulate a petition against requiring kids to read the book before the school abruptly changed its position.
Calls to PS/MS 114 were not immediately returned. A spokesman for the Department of Education, Devon Puglia, said there was no citywide required reading list. “Selected texts are school-based decisions,” he said.
But Parent Teacher Association Co-President Irene Dougherty said at least eight parents had planned to boycott the book.
“Not every child is emotionally mature enough at 11 years of age to handle this content,” Dougherty said. “It really should be a parent’s decision how much information is given to their children.”
The book, which tells the story of a Native American who transfers into an all-white high school, won the 2007 National Book Foundation award for Young People’s Literature.
“It’s a landmark work in young people’s literature,” said the foundation’s executive director Harold Augenbraum.
After the book was pulled from an Oregon classroom in 2008, Alexie defended it in the central Oregon newspaper The Bulletin.
“Everything in the book is what every kid in that school is dealing with on a daily basis, whether it’s masturbation or racism or sexism or the complications of being human,” Alexie told the newspaper. “To pretend that kids aren’t dealing with this on an hour-by-hour basis is a form of denial.”
School districts in Stockton, Miss., and Richland, Wash., banned Sherman’s memoir in 2010 and 2011.
Teri Lesesne, who teaches young adult literature at Sam Houston State University, in Huntsville, Tex., said everyone should read the book at some point in their lives.
“[But] I’m not sure I’d give it to sixth-graders,” she said. “I’m not sure that sixth-graders are young adults.”
