The first book written by the late Nobel laureate Toni Morrison is being removed from circulation by a Florida school district after a complaint by a parent whose 15-year-old was required to read it in an advanced literature course.
The Pinellas County School Board decided Tuesday to remove "The Bluest Eye," Morrison's debut book published in 1970, a novel about an 11-year-old African American girl growing up after the Great Depression who thinks of herself as ugly and prays her eyes will turn blue so that people would consider her beautiful.
"The Bluest Eye" was part of a collection of books that earned Morrison, who died in 2019, the 1993 Nobel Prize in literature. She also won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for "Beloved."
The American Library Association lists "The Bluest Eye" as the eighth-most challenged book in 2021 because it depicts child sexual abuse and was considered sexually explicit, and the book has been removed from school libraries and classrooms across the country.
"We are erring on the side of caution, per the language of [new state] training," said Dan Evans, chief academic officer for the school district, according to The Tampa Bay Times, during a discussion with school board members on policies related to library book selection and controversial material challenges.
The training set by the Florida Department of Education is designed for school districts to review and select age-appropriate materials and library resources.
The complaint was made by Michelle Stille, who in a YouTube video posted Jan. 15 said she is a math and science teacher at a "classical Christian school" and has seven children under age 16. She said she was unfamiliar with all the books on her 15-year-old's reading list at Palm Harbor University High School and decided to read them all.
She said when she first read "The Bluest Eye" in September, "I had a freeze response to it. I didn't know what to do, and I didn't tell anyone for months. I was so shocked that any adult would expose 15-year-olds to such explicit descriptions of illegal activities that I had no response."
She said after her child's teacher was told to remove the book from the curriculum by the principal, the teacher said "some parents don't like to be uncomfortable." She added some students said the teacher wore a T-shirt to school that read "Ban the Fascists, Save the Books."
"Was that message to me?" she asked.
She said she twice requested a meeting with the teacher, but he has not responded. She said she is pulling her children out of public schools.
"Please consider being involved in your public schools," she said. "Please consider learning what's really happening."
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