May 05, 2008 02:43 pm

Cut and paste version of story Photos School Committee member Beverly Dunne, pictured at the Thomas Carroll School. Staff photo Peabody School Committee member Ed Charest Staff photo Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner" was assigned to incoming juniors two summers ago. Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" was picked for incoming freshmen last year.

'Kite Runner' faces censorship fight in Massachusetts

A graphic sexual assault scene in the award-winning book has led to a school board member objecting to it being on the summer reading list for high school juniors.

By Stacie N. Galang
CNHI News Service

PEABODY, Mass. — The Kite Runner has been denounced as unfit for the high school summer reading list by a local school committee member, touching off a firestorm over possible censorship of the acclaimed novel.

Beverly Dunne, the school committee member, said she has received more than 100 complaints from parents about the graphic descriptions in the book by Khaled Hosseini, who tells about the chaotic modern history of his native Afghanistan from the monarchy to the Taliban.

Dunne said especially upsetting was a scene in the book that describes the rape of a child.

"You're forcing them (students) to read this book that, I'll be honest, if my children had brought it home from the library on their own, I would have considered it trash," Dunne said,

Michalene Hague, head of the high school English department. objected to any effort to exclude the book from the reading list. She said that while it may irritate some students and their parents, it has literary value that details friendship, atonement and the cruelty of war.

"Sometimes people don't want students to feel uncomfortable," Hague said. "Everything is nice and happy."

Hague said the summer reading list is carefully reviewed by teachers at the high school and should not be subject to further scrutiny by the school committee because of a questionable passage here and there.

"They might as well throw out the whole curriculum because there is something in every piece of writing that someone can object to," Hague said. Including, she added, Oedipus Rex or Romeo and Juliet.

"This ugly head of censorship and lack of trust in teachers to provide options of diversity and quality writing is a specter that haunts English departments across the nation," Hague said.

Dunne said the standard she would apply is that any book on the reading list should contain language that could be read out loud at the school board meeting and broadcast live to the community.

"There's thousands of books out there," she said. "Just because the New York Times says it's good, it doesn't mean it's good."

The Kite Runner is the first book written by Hosseini, an Afghan physician now living in California. It received many favorable reviews and has won national and international literary awards. Written in 2003, it was adapted into a Oscar-nominated movie last year.

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Stacie N. Galang writes for The Salem, Mass., News.