Our View: No need to drop novel from CdA curriculum

Samuel Wurzelbacher’s book was released this week, barely a month and a half after he became famous under the name he shares with the title of his literary creation – “Joe the Plumber.”

We’ll venture a guess that in 60 or 70 years, high school students throughout the nation will not be assigned to read “Joe the Plumber – Fighting for the American Dream.”

That’s not a criticism. Few books achieve lasting readership and relevance. Few books capture the truths, including the unpleasant ones, that define culture and force readers to examine their own humanity in depth. Few books become classics.

Those that do produce two predictable consequences:

•Scholars identify them as essential reading for young people who are learning about their cultural tradition.

•Parents of some of those children object. Not because of a book’s literary quality but because of disagreement over how long they should preserve their sons’ and daughters’ innocence about uncomfortable realities.

One book familiar to such squabbles is Aldous Huxley’s 76-year-old novel “Brave New World.” In less than two weeks the Coeur d’Alene School District is scheduled to decide whether to remove the controversial work of fiction from the required reading list for seniors.

Parts of “Brave New World,” you see, depict sexual intercourse as useful for something more than procreation. Something pleasant, even. Assigning such material to 18-year-olds offends some parents – and some students.

The issue in Coeur d’Alene isn’t about forcing every last senior to read a potentially objectionable book. It’s about letting those objections deprive all students of that book as a part of their curriculum. Like many other school districts, Coeur d’Alene allows youngsters who are offended by a required book, such as “Brave New World,” to select something else to read from a list of alternative titles.

That should be sufficient.

But if the school board accedes to pressure Dec. 15 and removes Huxley’s classic from the assigned reading list, students will see their options narrowed. Keep that up, and at some point they may be reading “Joe the Plumber” after all.