A school district in Indiana has decided to ban Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.

Students at Franklin Central High School had to return an award-winning but controversial novel halfway through reading it Wednesday after complaints surfaced about its appropriateness.

District administrators say Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” is being reviewed after it was pulled from two classrooms, and a decision on it is expected by Monday. A Franklin Township School Board member has vowed to keep it out of students’ hands.

“I was about as appalled as I’ve ever been in my life,” said board member Scott Veerkamp. “I wouldn’t want to expose my children to that garbage.”

Veerkamp said he and fellow board member Randall Bland received complaints about the book. Veerkamp then asked district administrators to pull it, which triggered a formal review.

“I couldn’t even sleep last night when I read some of the excerpts,” he said, adding that descriptive sex scenes, profanity, demeaning language and suicide were some of the material he found offensive.

Ok, that last part might be a bit of hyperbole. And this isn’t the first time that the Pulitzer Prize winning author had been subject to the scrutiny of school board members. In 2009, Song of Solomon was removed from the curriculum of a Maryland school district but later restored by a narrow school board vote.

The subject of banning books from schools and libraries often stirs alarm in me. And certainly, it’s valid for parents to question the content of some works of art in terms of ‘appropriateness’ for children. However, I have to wonder a little about this district and how ‘insular’ they are. Maybe 20 years ago, I might argue that high school juniors were pretty sheltered from mature subjects like sex and profanity. Maybe. But that’s even a stretch. For better or worse, our culture has matured, between television, music, film and the internets, I’m pretty sure the average 16-18 year old is facing or has faced real human issues of identity, sex, violence, suicide —perhaps have tossed a profane word or two. Any parent who thinks or believes otherwise is projecting fantasy on their children. These are the same kids who watched DeGrassi. My generation had the bubble gum struggles and unreality from Saved By The Bell. But this current generation saw planes slam into buildings, a car bomb slice a building in half that killed their countrymen, gunmen with baby faces slaughter their classmates before taking their own lives. This is a generation coming of age while two wars are waged in the middle east. This is a generation who has been introduced to words like cyberbullying, seen classmates abuse their boyfriends and girlfriends, set their friends on fire for fun. So before we speak of these man-childs and girl-women as kids, I really have to wonder about the content of conversation these parents have with their kids.

20 years ago in my IB English class (we didn’t have AP. IB stands for International Baccalaureate and so began my socialist indoctrination…) our required reading included Morrisson’s The Bluest Eye, as well as Elie Wiesel’s Night, Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, Hawthorne’s The Scartlet Letter, along with the work of metaphysical poets Donne and Percy. I’m pretty sure the Indiana parent would be mortified by the content in those books. I didn’t sleep after reading Night and for that I’m grateful. It was a lesson I hope I never forget. If you’ve read metaphysical poets, most of that work was about sex and ecstasy. Pecola Breedlove’s struggle helped me counsel someone who underwent similar trauma. 20 years ago, we witnessed a war in the Gulf, street and gang violence, and police brutality. We watched a disease wipe out an entire segment of our population. We watched men lie about weapons smuggling. We watched banks fail and men lie about it. We talked in hushed voices about sexual violence. We barely discussed mental illness and suicide although it was present. Like I said, it’s a stretch to talk of innocence in teenagers that are aware of the world around them.

Simultaneously, I also am curious about the following point:

Kim Preston, communications director for the Indiana Department of Education, said “Song of Solomon” is not on the list of recommended books for high school students. That list is not binding, she said.

“Typically that’s a school-level decision,” Preston said of reading choices.

Here’s where we can get into some rather thorny territory. Depending on school districts and states, the canon of books selected for high school students reflect a value judgment about literature, culture and appropriateness. I’d be curious to see what authors are included in that list, whether it contains a diversity of voices or what it deems as classic and modern classic. Literature is the record of our culture. And for the record, Song of Solomon (Song of Songs) from the bible is NOT about god’s or Jesus’s love for the church. That my dear Franklin Township School Board members is about love, love between man and women, of metaphysical poet level love as in Donne’s Canonization, ‘love beyond marital, filial, national, love that casts a widening pool of light.’