I just opted to discuss stuff with her, as and when it came up because of her encounters with the real world, because I knew from my own experience as a heavily travelled kid that she was likely to find stuff out long before she bothered mentioning stuff to me.

My oldest is 4, but I suspect that I'll be doing plenty of these types of discussions too. For example, I never plan on explaining to her the existence of dog porn even though I learned that little tidbit from Friday's Natter. That's something I really hope she's not likely to encounter as a child.

But the guy in the article is keeping the book until they promise to pull it. And I do not, not, not allow some other kid's parents to dictate to me what my child is allowed to read, or when. It's tricky, and a damned fine line.

I totally, totally agree. Of course the school can just buy another book and send him a bill. That's what I'd do.

DOG porn?

Ew ew ew ew ewwwwww. But not as bad, I suspect, as the heap of magazines I found when I finally managed to jimmy open my desk drawer at Dolby in London after taking that job; I found a shitload of German snuff porn stuff. I could have gone a lifetime without seeing those.

So, we're on the same page. Although the very concept of a kindergarten or 6-12 age group library that stocks dog porn is enough to make my head explode....

My first, last and only encounter with dog porn was in college. I was doing an oral history assignment, collecting some stories from vets who'd been drafted and gone to Viet Nam about their experience. One of them said that the military had sponsored movies for them, and more than one of the movies was porn. He specifically mentioned one in which (whitefonted for those who don't want to have to scrub their brain out) a Doberman performed oral sex on a woman which apparently resulted in a lot of post-movie discussion about how you train a dog to do that.

Other vets said they got those movies, but they weren't officially provided. I was visciously cynical in college, so I totally bought the USG providing dog porn to soldiers, but now it seems unlikely.

My mother called the head of the English department to make sure that this teacher would not be allowed to teach Merchant of Venice, at least not to my class.

Really? Seems like it would depend on how it's taught. Did they assume that the teacher would just say "And so, children, Shylock had to be punished for being Jewish."? I ask because the year I taught English, I taught that play for the play and "To Kill a Mockingbird" for the novel, and worked a lot with the parallels of trials of the assumed bad guys. MoV was always much trickier though, and I'm still not sure I got it right.

side story, but still literary.

when i was in college, we read A Passage to India, which was a book dealing with british colonialism in India. There's a part of the book where one of the white women comes running into the compound completely freaked out, and won't tell anyone what happened. Because she was out with her Indian guide, they assumed that he had raped her.

So, I say to my full professor at the top public university in the country, "this is very similar to To Kill a Mockingbird where the town assumes that Jim has raped Mayella" and he says, Oh, I wouldn't know. I'VE NEVER READ TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD." there is a hush. then he says "why are you all looking at me like i just told you I killed my mother" I lost all respect for him after that.

Oh, I wouldn't know. I'VE NEVER READ TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

(speechless)

an ENGLISH LIT professor? From where - Mars?

From Theresa Nielsen Hayden's blog:

I have finished copies of Sethra Lavode and you don’t. Just thought I’d mention it.

Definitive proof that editors are evil, also gloaters.

What is Sethra Lavode? Why is it ringing a bell in the recesses of my mind somewhere?

I remember getting in trouble for reading some trashy Danielle Steel-type novel when I was 9 or 10, but I was also doing other things with my best friend that got us in trouble, so not sure it was just the novel. :) And I got a lot of frowns on the trashy romances I'd bring home from the library in high school. Mostly, I didn't flaunt them, and my mom didn't disapprove too vociferously.

I have never gotten in any trouble for anything I have ever read. My mother did ask me to let her read the lyrics on a Poison tape, but I think she was confusing them with Alice Cooper.

Sethra Lavode must be the new Steven Brust Vlad Taltos novel.

In her excellent collection of essays, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman describes learning about sex as a child from reading Fanny Hill. I nearly choked -- I had the same experience. There is was, sitting on mom's bookshelf. Educational to say the least.