Cliff Buchan
News Editor

A Hugo woman who is protesting a book being read aloud to a fifth-grade class will get her say before the ISD 831 School Board on Aug. 2.

Laurie Causey is challenging the use of “The Giver” by Lois Lowry which was read aloud in a Grade 5 class at Scandia Elementary where Causey’s daughter was a student this spring.

Causey went before the school board at its regular meeting on Thursday, June 28 to make her case. The appearance was the next regular step in the district’s challenge process under Instructional Materials Selection Policy 605.

Officials who make up the seven-member school board, having not read the book, asked for a month delay and will consider the parent’s challenge at its next meeting on Aug. 2.

Causey came to the board last week after the district’s committee for challenged materials considered the request but determined that the book continue to be available for students. Causey’s last recourse is the appeal to the full school board to reconsider the committee findings.

In her letter to Superintendent Lynn Steenblock, Causey said she found the book inappropriate for this age group. Causey also said she believes the committee did not fully address the concerns she raised nor were the reasons given by the committee for the continued reading of the book adequate.

In her formal challenge submitted to Scandia Elementary in March, the parent objected to the book’s references to sexual fantasies and infanticide.

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, “The Giver” is a soft science fiction novel written by Lowry and published in 1993. It is set in a future society which is at first presented as a utopia and gradually appears more and more dystopic, so could therefore be considered anti-utopian.

The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the 12th year of his life. Jonas’ society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to “Sameness,” a plan which has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives.

Jonas is selected to inherit the position of “Receiver of Memory,” the person who stores all the memories of the time before Sameness, in case they are ever needed. As Jonas receives the memories from his predecessor—the Giver—he discovers how shallow his community’s life has become.

Despite controversy and criticism that the book’s subject material is inappropriate for young children, “The Giver” won the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold more than 5.3 million copies. In the United States and Canada it is a part of many middle school reading lists, but it is also on many banned book lists.

The novel forms a loose trilogy with Gathering Blue (2000) and Messenger (2004), two other books set in the same future era, according to Wikipedia.

Parent’s goal

Causey, in her visit to the school board, said it was not her mission to have the book pulled from the library nor was it her goal to become a problem parent.

Causey said it was her objective to not have the book read aloud for students in the fifth grade.

Causey said she also had issues with Policy 605 and how the committee formed its recommendation.

Although the policy provides parents with an “opt out” provision, she said she was not aware of the material being taught until the unit was about half completed.

The book was used as part of a history unit and the teaching of Nazi Germany during the period before and during World War II.

In its findings, the challenge committee agreed with the suggestion by Causey that non-fiction materials such as “The Diary of Anne Frank” could teach these concepts. The committee pointed out that the Anne Frank story is an established part of the current Grade 8 curriculum and used with studies of the Holocaust and genocide in parts of the world.

Causey questioned that rationale because the film version of the Anne Frank story was used at Scandia Elementary School this year.

In her appearance before the board last week, Causey argued that “teaching fiction is better than teaching science fiction.”

The school board’s review of the committee response will continue on Aug. 2.

Along with Dr. Linda Madsen, director of teaching and learning, the committee was made up of two community members, two classroom teachers, one media person, one administrator and one student.

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