CHALLENGE: (sort of) Bad Apple

[Gayle Hodur <ghodur@REDSHIFT.COM>]

A teacher's aide at school found one of our library books left behind by a
student and began reading it. He was so shocked by the paragraph or two
that he read that he turned it into the principal, who came to me and asked
if we could "reshelve" it (read: quietly make it go away.) I said I would
read it all the way through before going any further with it, since I
wasn't familiar with the book. The book is Bad Apple, written in 1982 by
Larry Bograd. Our students are 6th to 8th graders. After having read the
book myself, I, too, feel it is inappropriate for our level of school
library and more suited to high school, but I would like to have the
opinions of others, since I couldn't find any reviews or info on the
author. The book was published in 1982. The book was an outside donation
that had been processed and shelved without being read. (We received a LOT
of donations when we began to revitalize our libraries.) It is not a book I
would have selected for us, since it doesn't support any of our curriculum
and is not the type of independent reading that I would normally direct
students to. I don't really have any hesitation about pulling it out of
circulation for us, but I don't want to start a trend. I'm still fairly new
here, and I have asked that a reconsideration policy be established, but I
haven't had any administrative backup for that yet. They don't see it as
essential. If you have read this book or know about the author, please send
your info along to me, it will really help.

*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)

Gayle Hodur                             Snail Mail:
District Librarian                      Main Street Middle School
Soledad Unified School District         441 Main Street
(408) 678-3923                          Soledad, CA  93960
ghodur@redshift.com

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