Hitty Banned? I hope never!

ADVERTISEMENTS

Hitty Banned? I hope never!
by Jean D. Lotz

Can you believe that some people have objected to the Hitty book and suggested that it should be removed from the Accelerated Reading Program for gifted children due to "the nastiness on page 189" of the hardback book?

The following is the text of the original post:

Subject: Potential Book Challenge
From: Janice S.
Date: 1998/01/16
Newsgroups: schl.sig.lmnet

Has anyone out there ever had any experience with the following book? There is a possible challenge stirring against it in one of our district's school libraries. I have never read the book. Does the comment below have any merit?

..The 1930 Newbery Award Winner, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years, by Lathrop. This book is about a doll, telling her memoirs from an antique shop window. The "potential challenger" questions a part on page 189 of the edition in our library. {the hard back version} On this page, the challenger feels there is a reference to a man sitting her on his knee and pretending to make love to her.

Janice S., District Library Media Specialist
Jackson, WY 83001

In reply to the above post, I wrote the following in an email to Janice defending the book:

Hitty reveals a lot about the people she encounters during her long life including "relaxed moral standards" of which she strongly disapproves. The "offensive" segment which is being objected to is quoted directly from the Hitty book below:

"I stayed there until some picnickers stopped to eat lunch under my tree. They were noisy, unattractive lot of young men and women whose clothes shocked me by their tightness, and lack of modesty. I would almost have preferred to stay unrescued than to fall into their hands. They joked and made all manner of foolish remarks about me and my appearance. One of the young men even set me on his knee and pretended to make love to me. This was not at all to my liking, though all the girls began to giggle."

Well the term "making love" didn't mean the same in 1929 when the book was written. It likely meant "being overly affectionate" but not actually "doing it".
Jean Lotz 4/98

OTHER COMMENTS:

I checked out your posting of Hitty banned. Interesting. Your comment was right on the mark!

Bill 4/27/98

I imagine that the man "making love" to her in the book was stroking her hair, or something like that. Isn't it ironic that people would spend so much energy on something as insignificant as this, when there is so much real corruption and disintegration in our society influencing our children daily. It's really sad. The Hitty book is a wonderful book for children, filled with little bits of history and religion of different cultures. It would be a shame if it was stigmatized the way the Huckleberry Fin book has been.

DeAnne 4/28/98

I was STUNNED about the message concerning Hitty being banned......that is a statement made out of ignorance.....Any educated individual would never ban such a wonderfully lovely tale as this. There are always the lunatic fringe who find fault with just about anything that doesn't meet there warped view of the world....in my opinion, that is exactly what this is. I have no fear that the intelligent individuals evaluating our childrens literature will make a calm and mature decision about how wonderfully written this book was, is and will always remain!!!! AND THAT'S MY THOUGHTS ON THE MATTER!!!!! (SMILE).

Penny 5/4/98

ADVERTISEMENTS