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Book Review, © Copyright 2003, Jim Loy
There is an amazing censorship of school textbooks and tests going on. These books and tests are censored, mostly by the publishers, to remove words and topics that are objectionable to racial minorities and other groups. The results are sometimes extremely bizarre, and one effect is that the books students are reading are extremely boring and mindless. A typical example from this book: A test had a small true story about a blind man who climbed Mt. McKinley. The censors recommended that it be removed for two reasons: (1) a story of mountain climbing is objectionable to people in cities or in flatlands, and (2) the story suggests that blindness may be a handicap. Another example was that a story about a dolphin was objectionable to people who live inland. Another example: a factual article that said that there were rich people and poor people in ancient Egypt was objectionable to poor people. And so there are no mountains, or oceans, or cities (for that matter), or poor people, or rich people. Women cannot ever be portrayed as mothers or homemakers or secretaries; they are all scientists or similar people. Dinosaurs cannot be mentioned, except in a biology textbook. All characters and places are generic, and uninteresting. And our kids cannot read. No wonder. This is a thought-provoking book. It ends with long lists of objectionable words, phrases, and ideas (some make sense, some do not), as listed by publishers for their authors.
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