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<font size="+1">Here is what London readers of The Guardian read
about Coeur d'Alene yesterday:<br>
</font><br>
<b><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://tinyurl.com/qhwwwx3">http://tinyurl.com/qhwwwx3</a></b> <br>
<br>
<p>Hailed by the Nobel prize judges in 1962 <a
href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1962/"
data-link-name="in body link" data-component="in-body-link"
class=" u-underline">for his realism and sympathetic humour</a>,
John Steinbeck is under attack in the US, where parents in Idaho
have branded Of Mice and Men “neither a quality story nor a
page-turner” and asked for it to be removed from classrooms.<br>
</p>
<p>A curriculum review committee in the city of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
has recommended the 1937 novella should no longer be taught in
classrooms, according to <a
href="http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/may/04/cda-school-committee-proposes-restricting-steinbec/"
data-link-name="in body link" data-component="in-body-link"
class=" u-underline">the Spokesman-Review</a>, and that
ninth-graders should study it “on a voluntary, small-group basis”
only.<br>
</p>
<p>For parent Mary Jo Finney, the use of words such as “bastard” and
“God damn” makes it unsuitable for 14- or 15-year-old students.
After counting more than 100 “profanities”, she expressed her
shock to the Spokesman-Review that “teachers actually had the
audacity to have students read these profanities out loud in
class”.<br>
</p>
Steinbeck’s story of the difficulties faced by migrant fieldworkers
in the Great Depression is <a
href="http://www.steinbeck.org/pages/educational-resources"
data-link-name="in body link" data-component="in-body-link"
class=" u-underline">a fixture on high-school syllabuses</a> in
the US, the UK and beyond, but since 1953 has also become one of
America’s <a
href="http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics/reasons"
data-link-name="in body link" data-component="in-body-link"
class=" u-underline">most frequently-challenged books</a>.<br>
<br>
There is more to this story at the link <b><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://tinyurl.com/qhwwwx3">http://tinyurl.com/qhwwwx3</a></b>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Ken<br>
<br>
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