FIRST-PERSON: Should raunchy be the fourth R?
Aug 18, 2005
By Warren Throckmorton
Baptist Press

GROVE CITY, Pa. (BP)--School is starting around the country. Awaiting anxious students are new schedules, new teachers, new challenges and in some school districts, old controversies about what books should be read in school. Wow, where did the summer go?

School districts have been facing challenges over what should be in the library as long as there have been libraries, but recent changes in the world of children's literature and our society have focused the debates on matters of teen sexuality.

A recent MSNBC article regarding adolescent reading material describes growing parental concern over the explicit nature of books aimed at young teens. Correspondent Janet Shamlian reports on some recent hot selling teen titles: "In ‘Claiming Georgia Tate,’ a father has sex with his daughter. In ‘Rainbow Party,’ teens make plans for a sex party. And in ‘Teach Me, due out in late August and seemingly ripped from the day's headlines, there's a student-teacher affair."

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