The result was the formation of a Book Review Committee, consisting of four members and two advisors (including Supt. Ryder). Last spring the Committee issued an official report of its activities and findings. The Committee decided to meet with members of the Telstar English Department in order to elicit its educational philosophy. They learned that the teachers viewed their task not as one of "getting students to memorize rules of grammar and traditional pieces of valued poetry," but rather as one of trying to "have students exposed to differing ideas and value systems in an effort to have them arrive at a personal view of themselves, humanity, and the environment in which they must involve themselves."
Subsequently the Committee met with the Rev. Hanson and four of his supporters. This quintet aimed most of its artillery at the second book, The Emperor of ice-cream. Particular objection was voiced (1) to the protagonist's "irreverent" references to a statue and to his mother's religious values; (2) to the "gutter language" and reference to various anatomical organs: and (3) to two admittedly unconsummated sexual scenes that, it was felt, "could not help but sexually arouse children and adults alike."
After some discussion, the Rev. Hanson stated that the book was not "the real problem." What needed changing, he claimed, was the entire "humanities" approach of the English department, an approach that "poses many questions, but does not present answers." The minister went on to claim that "this humanistic approach presents a 'false God.'" and that "Telstar might go the way of many college campuses toward socialism and communism" (shades of the earlier Blue Hill fracas!).
At its final meeting, the Review Committee agreed unanimously to recommend to the full Board of Directors of SAD 44 that the reading not be removed from the English curriculum. At the same time, it called attention to a policy, already adopted by the Board long before the current controversy according to which a parent's request to remove a specific book assignment for his child will be honored.
IN THIS skirmish, then, the forces of light and right seem to have triumphed for a change. But the Rev. Hanson carried his campaign into the pages of The Leaflet, the official organ of the New England Association of Teachers of English, by contributing his article "Choosing Literature" to the May 1969 issue, in which he branded books like the three above as "immoral," "degenerate," and "worthless trash."
It is safe to say, then, that neither Maine nor any other state has seen the end of the Linwood Hansons of the world, who must be tirelessly resisted whenever they arise. As to the three novels (all available in paperback), I commend them to any adolescent, and to any adult. I especially commend them to the Rev. Hanson and his self-righteous cohorts, whom I strongly urge to make an effort to move ahead and join the rest of us in the twentieth century. In the meantime, the Tom Marinos among us may take heart from the remark of Hesse's Demian that "people with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest."