Oh My Word

My daughter brought home a library book today from public school. She went to the library and she has to always have an "accelerated reading" book checked out for her reading class. These books must be a certain level for their advanced reading.

The book my daughter brought home is called Stardust by Neil Gaiman. My daughter showed me some pages in this book that I could not believe. In fact this book contains sexually explicit material and was recommended to my 8th grade daughter by her reading teacher. She showed her teacher the book and her teacher's response was "This really is a good book.".

The book is set in the English countryside in the 20th century (I think). There is a thread in this book that involves a young man who cheats on his girlfriend and has sex with a witch's slave. Yes that is what I said, sex with a witch's slave. This was recommended reading for my 8th grade daughter. It is not just an allusion to sex. It describes it.

I have to forewarn you that this material is explicit but I am including a small part of it here. I have put the text in reverse video color. To view it,highlight the following block. The following is a direct quote from the book:

There was a moment of hesitation, and then her mouth opened against his, and her tongue slid into his mouth, and he was irrevocably, lost. 

He had kissed before, with the girls of the village, but he had gone no further. 

His hand felt her small breasts through the silk of her dress, touched the hard nubs of her nipples. She clung to him, hard, as if she was drowning, fumbling with his shirt, with his britches. 

She was so small; he was scared he would hurt her and break her. He did not. She wriggled and writhed beneath him, grasping and kicking, and guiding him with her hand. 

She placed a hundred burning kisses on his face and chest, and then she was above him, straddling him, grasping and laughing, sweating and slippery as a minnow, and he was arching ad pushing and exulting, his head full of her and only her, and had he known her name he would have called it out aloud. 

At the end, he would have pulled out, but she held him inside her, wrapped her legs around him, pushed against him so hard that he felt that the two of them occupied the same place in the universe.

This is erotic stuff even for an adult. Can you believe that is considered appropriate reading for a 13 year old girl? I can't. I have not decided what I am going to do. I have talked to my daughter and she has a good head on her shoulders. We shall be watching this situation as the year unfolds.


Copyright 2005, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)