Tis the season of book banning again in the central wack zone. This time, Kurt Vonnegut and Sarah Ockler are the targets.
I’m surprised to see an op-ed of this tone in the normally right-leaning Indy Star. Maybe its because Vonnegut is a favorite son.
Last week, the school board of Republic, Mo., voted 4-0 to ban two books, one of them Indianapolis native Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughter-House Five.” The vote came in response to a complaint lodged by a resident named Wesley Scroggins, who home schools his children.
Apparently, removing his kids from public schools wasn’t enough for Scroggins. By his reckoning, “Slaughter-House Five” — named the 18th Greatest English Language Novel of the 20th Century by the Modern Library — failed to meet moral standards of his favorite book, the Bible.
The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in Indianapolis is providing relief to the more enlightened citizens of Republic by shipping copies of the banned text to the area.
The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library stepped into the fray after a Missouri high school banned one of the Indiana-born author’s best-known books.
The Indianapolis library plans to ship copies of “Slaughterhouse-Five” to families in Republic, Mo., who ask for them, Library executive director Julia Whitehead said Friday.
While they’re at it, the library should include copies of Fahrenheit 451 as well.
