Farenheit 451

[Lush]

*Humph*

Before everyone else jumps all over this thread, let me just say that it seems to me that the usually an educated, open-minded and generally sane school official would rarely ban any book from being brought to school, unless it interfered with class. I can only imagine the frustration of my history teacher, when, one day, upon being promopted to give the name of Chernenko's successor, I raised my sleepy eyes from the book that was so obviously not the textbook, muttered "Aragor...er...Andro...I mean...whatever," and went back to reading as if nothing was amiss.

The only other legitimate reason to ban a book from school is the possibility of its presence as some sort of catalyst for violence. I mean, imagine some kid distributing copies of Mein Kampf on his lunchbreak. In terms of books more closely associated with Tolkien, I suppose there is always the possibility of some 8th graders roughing each other up over that eternal Balrog-wings question....but it's a slim one, wouldn't you say?

Actually, I honestly don't see why, if the above-mentioned reasons are non-applicable, Tolkien would not be banned where J.K. Rowling would. Maybe it has more to do with the administrators' age than anything else. Tolkien's works have been around for a while, and Rowling is a relative newcomer, and therefore a...threat? Beats me. As for Bradbury, well, Fahrenheit is one of those hard-to-pin-down books et generale. Most people who freak out over it have not even read it. Perhaps that's it. School administrators are becoming illiterate, and the world is going to hell. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]