Opinion: Parent's complaint goes too far

The Chocolate War is a book about a freshman boy's struggle for individuality in a tradition-bound Catholic high school for boys run by an ambitious administrator and a secret student society, the Vigils. The way the boy chooses to express his individuality -- he refuses to sell candy in the school's annual fundraiser -- pits him against the administrator and leads to savage beatings at the hands of the Vigils.

Author Robert Cormier's dark novel about peer pressure and the dangers of conformity in a high school setting has won many awards since it was published in 1974, and it appears on many lists of recommended books for teenagers. It also has aroused controversy because of its coarse language and occasional references to masturbation and adolescent sexual fantasies.

There is probably little in Cormier's book that Pinellas County students have not heard, seen or experienced in their own schools. But when Dunedin Highland Middle School teacher Jennifer Oliver made The Chocolate War required reading for a class of advanced eighth-graders, one parent found the book objectionable. Not only did parent Chuck Fonshell object to his 13-year-old daughter reading the book, he does not want the book taught in any middle school classroom in Pinellas County.

To her credit, Oliver, who has taught the book for three years without incident, was straightforward with parents. She sent them a letter in which she described the book's plot and noted that the book was controversial because of its mature themes. She required her 34 students to get their parents' permission to read the book. Fonshell refused to grant permission, so his daughter was given an alternate book, The Outsiders, to read in the school library, and Oliver worked with the student on the book outside of class.

That should have satisfied Fonshell's desire to protect his child from a book he found objectionable. But now Fonshell is trying to exert the same measure of control over what other middle school students read, and that is not appropriate.

Because of Fonshell's complaint, a seven-member panel of teachers, parents and community leaders will review the book and make a recommendation. If Fonshell loses at that level, he can appeal to the district's First Amendment Review Committee, the superintendent and even the School Board.

Fonshell wonders why the district would allow study of a book that contains language students could not say to a teacher or wear on their T-shirts. But anyone who has spent time in today's schools knows that the rough language of The Chocolate War is in common use among adolescents as they converse with each other. Fonshell's effort to have the book banned from classrooms implies that only sanitized art and literature should be studied by middle school students in Pinellas -- a view with which many educators and parents would disagree.

The school district did the right thing in this case. It communicated truthfully with parents about the curriculum, provided a method for parents to object, and offered an alternative book. Beyond that, the district has an even greater obligation: to offer a curriculum that challenges its students intellectually and creatively by exposing them to a wide range of ideas and materials. No individual should have the power to change that.

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