Vonnegut library offers banned book to students
After the recent book banning at a Missouri high school I am feeling a bit unstuck in time myself — is this the fifties, sixties, or seventies over again? Or perhaps it is Republic Missouri that’s come unstuck - thrown back in time to House Unamerican Activities Committee days when political zealots told Americans what they could think and religious zealots censored media, proscribed all forms of birth control, and prohibited marriages between blacks and whites.
Of course there are a lot of of unreconstructed idiots in Missouri, and I’ve seen some fly their loser flag above Old glory on the fourth, strongly hankering back to those days of yore when they could own slaves.
Up to 150 students at a Missouri high school that ordered “Slaughterhouse-Five” pulled from its library shelves can get a free copy of the novel, courtesy of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, library officials said on Thursday.
The offer for students at Republic High School comes on the heels of the Republic School Board’s decision to remove Vonnegut’s novel and Sarah Ockler’s “Twenty Boy Summer” from the curriculum and the school library shelves.
“All of these students will be eligible to vote and some may be protecting our country through military service in the next year or two,” Julia Whitehead, the executive director of the Vonnegut library in Indianapolis, said in a statement.
“It is shocking and unfortunate that those young adults and citizens would not be considered mature enough to handle the important topics raised by Kurt Vonnegut, a decorated war veteran. Everyone can learn something from his book.”