WE MSAD#44 CHALLENGE OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS FORM Type of Material: _X_ Book Magazine/Periodical i Software Other (Please specify) Recording Author (if known) Jesse Andrews Title _Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Publisher (if known) Person making complaint: Stephanie Erickson Street Telephone 207-331-6697 Address Tewn Greenwood Complainant represents: _x_ Him/herself __ Organization __ Other group 1. To what portion of the material do you object? (Please be specific, cite pages, scenes, etc.) _See Attached 2. What do you feel might be the negative result of reading/viewing/hearing this material? See Attached 3. For what age group would you recommend this material? __See Attached 4, Is there anything good about this material? _See Attached 5. Did you read/view/hear all of the material? Yes Ifrot, what parts did you read/view/ hear? 6. Are you aware of the professional reviews/judgment of this material? YeS 7. What do you believe is the theme and/or intention of this material? Teenager’s experience dealin: with death, and overall high school experience 8. What would you like the schoo! to do about this material?” Do not assign it to my child. — Do not assign it to any students. _X_ Withdraw it from the library and/or instruetional program. Refer it to the Educational Media Review Committee for evaluation. 9. __ Inits place, what material would you recommend? Signature of ComplainantChallenge of Instructional Material: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Pedophilia, Sexual Abuse, Vulgar Language “Are you gonna eat her pussy?” [..] “Yeah, Earl, I'm going to eat her pussy.” “Heh.” “Yeah.” “Do you even know how to eat pussy?” “Uh, not really.” Papa Gaines never sat you down, said, Son, one day you're gonna have to eat the pussy.” “No. But he did teach me how to eat a butthole.” (page 59-60) ““m also gonna be that gay uncle. Draw a fake mustache and pretend to be all fat and shit. Be like, Boy, I'm gay as hell. I'ma fuck you.” (Page 159) Vulgar Language The word “fuck” is used 94 times. “Bitch” is used 8 times. “Pussy” 13 times. “Dick” or “Cock” 25 times. “Titties” 7 times. “Fag” or “gay” 11 times. “Shit” 88 times. “Ass” 53 times. “Boner” 7 times, “My God, what if she wanted to have sex? Would | even be able to get a boner? | was pretty sure it would be impossible for me to get a boner in those circumstances.” (pages 68-69) “They'd probably think | was just going to masturbate all over them”(...] * “We had this one pillow in the house, they had to burn it, because that thing just got me so aroused.” + “That was the sexiest pillow, | just, | just wanted to make love to it all night, until the break of dawn.” « “I used to call that pillow the dirtiest names. | used to say, ‘You slutty pillow, you're such a dirty slut, stop toying with my emotions.” * “The pillow’s name was Francesca.” * “Then one day | came home from school and caught that pillow having oral sex with this table from across the street, and—OK, OK. I'll stop.” (pages 70- 72) “yo pa gaines drove me to whole foods so if you need some funky viasic pickle relish for that pussy just hollerrr” (page 74) “how the fuck can somebody call theyself a bisexual. GREG Uhh . . . EARL Man, ain’t nobody like, that fine-ass girl is making me hard right now. Oh wait, my mistake, that dude over there is the one that’s making me hard. That don’t make no goddamn sense. GREG | guess sometimes | also wonder about that. EARL Goddamn. If you're seriously like, “For real, 'm a bisexual, any person can get me hard,” man, you must get a hard-onChallenge of Instructional Material: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl from all kinds of freaky shit{...] You tellin me right now, you can look at some titties, get a hard-on, look at some dude’s funky dick, get another hard-on. You gonna tell me that for real.” (pages 206-207) Stereotyping Churchgoers as “Child Predators” “they spend so much time trying to convince you to hang out with them, and the way they try to do that is by inviting you over to their church, “We've got cookies and board games,” they say, or that sort of thing. “We just got a Wii set up!” Something about it always seems a little off. Eventually, you realize: These same exact sentences are also said by child predators.” (page 6) Stereotyping Athletes as Homophobic “there is no force on earth greater than the fear jocks have of homosexuals.” (page 8) Stereotyping Israelis as Promiscuous “She is the executive director of Ahavat Ha’Emet, a nonprofit that sends Jewish teenagers to Israel to work on a kibbutz and lose their virginity. | should point out that the virginity-losing part is not technically in the mission statement of Ahavat Ha’Emet. I'm just saying, you do not leave Israel without getting laid. You could have an eight- inch-thick titanium diaper bolted to your pelvis, and you would still somehow get laid. It should be their official tourism slogan: Israel. Where Virginity Goes to Die.™ Israelis get it on.” (pages 48-49) Inappropriate Teacher/Student Interaction “made him very attractive to girls. Even our teachers used to hit on him.” (page 23)Challenge of instructional Material: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl 1am requesting removal of the book Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews from the Telstar library, and for the District to consider a separation of material with sexually explicit content between middle and high school. While | agree with Ms. Fraser that the overall message of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is important, | am so disappointed to have to defend what should be obvious: it is grossly inappropriate for a middle school library, being accessible to students as young as 10 years old. Most distributors catalog this book as Young Adult, with the youngest recommended age | found being 14. The author himself describes it as a “fictional young-adult book” (page 270). Ms. Fraser stated that she coaches middle school students when checking out books that she feels may not be appropriate to them. This is a faulty approach at best, and one that stands to potentially cause significant harm to students. First, it is not in line with school policy. Instructional and Library-Media Materials Policy (Policy 1JJ) directs the library-media specialist to consider the students’ maturity level when selecting material and gives no flexibility to forgo this criterion. Bypassing policy and making personal judgement calls on individual students after selecting material undermines the Criteria for Selection process outlined in Policy 1JJ, and has the potential to cause serious harm to students who are not developmentally ready to be exposed to certain sexual content, Particularly if a student is a victim of sexual abuse. Middle school aged students may not be able to separate fictional content from real world experience, which has the potential to damage (or deepen an already damaged) personal psyche. Below are two examples from Me and Earl and the Dying Girl that could potentially cause distressing beliefs that pedophilia and sexual abuse are a “normal” childhood experience: “"Papa Gaines never sat you down, said, Son, one day you're gonna have to eat the pussy.” “No. But he did teach me how to eat a butthole.” (page 60) “I'm also gonna be that gay uncle. Draw a fake mustache and pretend to be all fat and shit. Be like, Boy, I'm gay as hell. I'ma fuck you.” (Page 159) Again, while an older high school student may be developmentally able to separate such sexually explicit fictional dialogue from real world experience, younger students may not. This is especially likely for children of sexual abuse. Lastly, coaching a student before they checkout a book does nothing to prevent the student from reading the book while in the library. This protection can only beChallenge of instructional Material: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl guaranteed by either separeting sexually explicit material by school level or not carrying books with sexually explicit content at all Irecently proposed a change to Policy JJ that would have essentially separated sexually explicit material by school level. | believe this to be a fair compromise to avoid “book banning” while also removing access to sexually explicit material that is not suitable for younger students. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a prime example of why this change to policy is necessary. | ask that the district consider such changes, whether my proposal or otherwise similar changes. In the meantime, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is not suitable for the Telstar library where it is accessible to middle school students. Respectfully, Stephanie Erickson, School Board Director representing the Town of Greenwood