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Texas school bans 'Snow Falling on Cedars'

Saturday, September 11, 1999

By ZEKE MacCORMACK
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS NEWS

BOERNE, Texas -- David Guterson's award-winning novel "Snow Falling on Cedars" has been banned from classes and removed from the high school library here because it describes graphic violence, racial bigotry and honeymoon sex.

English teacher Frances Riley faces disciplinary action for assigning 80 seniors to read the book about a Japanese-American man charged with murdering a fellow salmon fisherman on Puget Sound after World War II.

Although she received authorization to use the novel, school administrators now accuse her of "poor judgment" in using it in her classes.

The author, contacted last night at his Bainbridge Island home, said he supports the right of local communities to decide what's appropriate reading for students. "It's not up to me" whether Texas seniors should read his book, he said.

Guterson, who used to teach high school on Bainbridge, said he told his own students that if they objected to an assigned book, they could arrange to read a different book.

Riley, the 45-year-old Texas teacher, still supports using Guterson's best-selling novel, which she described as "a murder mystery, love story and history lesson all in one."

"The kids love it and were very disappointed that we stopped just when it was getting good," she said.

"The main reason I chose it is I believe in utilizing current fiction to teach morals, values and issues," said Riley, who has taught English in Boerne since 1990.

She said Guterson's book is used in high school classrooms across the nation and was advertised in scholastic supply catalogs as appropriate for grades 10 and up.

R.L. Bien, English Department chairman, said he approved the book "without reading the material." He now deems it inappropriate.

Riley said she will consult the American Federation of Teachers, her union, about challenging the reprimand.

She volunteered to stop using the book after administrators objected to several passages yesterday.

"The one-page sex scene didn't fly," she said, adding another scene with soldiers using racial slurs during war "sent (the school administrators) into tizzies."

Boerne High School Principal Sam Champion said two parents and several students complained about the racially charged thriller that was named book of the year by the American Booksellers Association in 1995 and won the PEN/Faulkner Award.

The book, which was on The New York Times' best-seller list for more than a year, has sold more than 3 million copies. A movie based on the novel will be released Dec. 22.

But Champion said the book's popularity was not the point. "Parents entrust their kids to us, and we want to ensure it's a wholesome learning environment. We're a conservative community," he said.

School Superintendent John Kelly called parts of the book "highly offensive" and said he ordered it removed from the library and barred from classes.

"It has 17 obscenities on one page, for example, and a graphic scene involving the sexual organ of a dead boy, and it has an inappropriate sex scene not suitable for our high school students," Kelly said.

Students had mixed reactions.

"To me, it's sad that these simple-minded people here can't put aside sexual things and appreciate the real literature," said Lara Hutto, 17, one of Riley's students. "I'm going to finish it."

A classmate, Jerald Meadows, labeled the book "kind of grotesque" and "not school material."

But he said it was its 460-page length, not the content, that generated many student protests.

"Kids complained to their parents about it just to get out of reading it," Meadows, 17, said.

Debbie Lowrance, the parent of a student in the class, supports the ban and wants a refund of the $16 she spent on the book.

"Did anybody read this book" before assigning it?" she asked.

Riley said she had forgotten about the questionable passages since reading the book two years ago.

She still considers it appropriate for seniors, but said, "I wouldn't teach it to 10th-graders."

P-I reporter Kathy George contributed to this report.

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