The Mesa County Public Library provides many excellent programs and services to our community, and so it is surprising that they have chosen “The God of Animals” as a book that is promoted to be shared by families and in the schools.

Well written though it may be, with a natural “flow” to the words, it is still difficult to believe that the library could not have selected a more appropriate work of literature to be shared by the community. I read the book over the weekend, with the intention of then reading and discussing it with my two teenage daughters. I do not consider myself a prude, nor am I in favor of censorship, but this is not a book that will be on our table for sharing.

Besides the liberal use of the “f” word throughout the book, there are several passages and themes that are disturbing at best, and highly inappropriate for discussion or sharing in an elementary or middle school classroom. There is a passage in the book where 8th grade girls are discussing – in graphic detail – how to properly perform oral sex. There is also a section where a young married couple spend their days fighting with each other, and the young subject of the story is told that this is ok and the acceptable way of things, because fighting is just a sign of “pent up sexual energy” and it is ok as long as they are going upstairs together every night to “make up”.

Lastly, and certainly very disturbing especially in light of current local events, the central character of the book, an eleven year old child, pulls a phone into the closet every night for months where she has secret phone conversations with her single male middle school teacher in which they discuss life and philosophy and he reads her poetry. At the end of the book, he is fired for drinking, but even on discovery of his phone calls, nothing is done, and there is no outrage, which gives implicit consent to an inappropriate relationship between a young child and a teacher.

As a book club selection for adults who choose to read this book, fine. But as a “community” selection? If the library wants to use books with this level of content, they should at least put a “offensive language and mature themes” warning on the promotional literature.

Theresa Bloom
Grand Junction

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 10:52 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.