“But many people have complained that it contains the word ‘cunt’,” said Haddon. The word appears when Christopher is on a train to London, and is noticed by two men. “Come on, shift it, you daft cunt. I need more beers before I sober up,” one of them says to the other.
One parent told the paper: “I am not interested in having books banned. But to have that language and to take the name of Christ in vain – I don’t go for that. As a Christian, and as a female, I was offended. Kids don’t have to be reading that type of thing and that’s why I was asking for an alternative assignment … I know it’s not realistic to pretend bad words don’t exist, but it is my responsibility as a parent to make sure that my daughter knows what is right or wrong.”
“The assumption is that I should be morally affronted when this happens – and it has happened surprisingly often – but the truth is that it always generates a really interesting debate among school kids and librarians and parents, not just about Curious, but about literature and freedom and language, and this is an undeniably good thing,” said Haddon. “I have no way of proving it, but my suspicion is that more people read the book as a result and read it with more attention and interest than they might have done.”
Author Mark Haddon has said that he is “puzzled and fascinated by the way in which some readers remain untroubled by the content of a novel but deeply offended by the language in which it is described”, after his award-winning book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was pulled from a summer reading list at a Florida school over parental concerns about swearing.
“Christopher is completely unaware of the offence that swearing is intended to cause and therefore it simply washes over him,” said the novelist, adding that while he has received complaints in the past about the novel’s language, “no-one has ever complained that the book is about a mother abandoning her son or that it contains a scene in which a father hits his son”.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who refuse to accept his electoral defeat stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace in the capital Sunday, just a week after the inauguration of his leftist rival, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The incidents recalled the Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol, something many political analysts and the judiciary Bolsonaro have warned about for months. But in this case it is likely that Congress and the Supreme Court had limited personnel inside the buildings on a Sunday.
Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco said he was in permanent contact with Brasilia’s governor, Ibaneis Rocha, and that the entire police apparatus had been mobilized to control the situation.
s on TV channel Globo News showed protesters roaming the presidential palace, many of them wearing green and yellow, the colors of the flag that have also come to symbolize the Bolsonaro government.
“This absurd attempt to impose their will by force will not prevail,” said Justice Minister Flavio Dino on his Twitter account. “The government of the Federal District has ensured there will be reinforcements. And the forces at our disposal are at work.”
One booklover’s quest to read the most commonly banned and challenged books in America.
Genre: Fiction
Book Jacket Synopsis: “Christopher John Francis Boone knows all of the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. This improbable story of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and beloved novels of the last decade.”
Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time tells the story of Christopher Boone, a highly intelligent 15-year-old with autism who sets out to determine who killed a dog (Wellington) in his neighborhood. Like many books I’ve read lately, however, the story of the murdered dog isn’t actually the main focus of the novel; in fact, Christopher gets to the bottom of the murder relatively quickly. Instead, the book largely focuses on how Christopher interacts with and interprets his world, and how his uniqueness impacts those around him, including his parents, aides, and neighbors. I thought Haddon did a remarkable job with the narrative, and would be curious to know how those more familiar with autism feel about Christopher’s experiences. While I enjoyed the novel overall, I did find that I wanted the murder mystery to play more of a central role in the story than it did. Not only did I determine who had killed Wellington long before Christopher came to the same conclusion, but I also felt that the second half of the plot began to drag once Christopher’s objective switched from solving the murder mystery to finding his mother. At any rate, I would certainly recommend this book to people looking for a unique narrator, but I also think it has received more hype than it perhaps deserves.
Reason for Ban/Challenge: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time has been challenged and banned in several schools, primarily due to complaints regarding “profane” language. Some parents have also requested the book be removed from school reading lists because they believe it promotes atheism. But Haddon doesn’t seem to be too troubled by the frequent challenges to his work. In his words:
Rating:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon (Book Summary) – Minute Book Report
It’s not often that one word garners a book challenge, but in Wilson County, Tennessee, it appears all you need is the F-bomb to get a book banned. Earlier this week, the Wilson County School Board voted 3-1 to removed Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time from the school system’s approved reading list for that very reason.
Andy Humbles with The Tennessean broke the story, describing the motivation behind the ban:
The Curious Incident centers on a 15-year-old boy on the autism spectrum, who decides to investigate the murder of his neighbor’s dog. It is one of the few books to feature the first-person perspective of a protagonist who has a social disability, and it received multiple awards and critical acclaim. The book has been a fixture on reading lists around the country because of the unique perspective it offers. It was required reading at Mt. Juliet High School, Wilson Central High School, and Lebanon High School, but parents and students are able to select a replacement if they aren’t comfortable with the material.
The ban hasn’t gained much coverage outside of Tennessee media, but if outcry over the ban grows, we can only hope that the school board overturns its wrong-headed (and unconstitutional) decision. We’ll keep you posted as the story develops.
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