“Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” Too Risque for East Penn Students?

I always marvel at people who love the Bible, but get all bent out of shape over books that have drug or sexual content.

I’m not even going to get into the immoral and straight-up weird and out of context stuff that is in the Bible, you can do that in the comments below, if you wish.

However, students NEED to read things that push them outside of their comfort zones.

If I haden’t read Henry Miller’s “The Tropic of Cancer” or even some less subversive books by Hemingway, I really cringe at where and what I’d be reading today.

And, of course, Albert Camus’ “The Stranger.” My favorite book of all time.

So, are some books too risque to be included on suggested summer reading lists? Ugh, I guess the case COULD be made for that, depending on a parent’s level of censorship and what they don’t want their kids reading.

I guess I just put more onus on the reader. Read as much as you can, read things you don’t agree with, read things that blow your mind one way or another. But, read it all. I don’t get why some people are so scared of this. Let them read. Let them make up their own minds.

“Inappropriate” and “pornographic” were the words Paula Whittman used to describe two books on East Penn School District’s summer reading list when she addressed the board of directors at their meeting Monday night.

The books, “Prep” by Curtis Sittenfeld and “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” by Tom Wolfe, were brought to the board’s attention by Whittman and Jeff Lotte of Emmaus. Lotte passed out photocopied pages from each book with highlighted excerpts that Whittman described as “just a small example of what’s in these books.”

“As parents we work hard to guide our kids and we want them to be upstanding citizens,” Whittman said. “We don’t want to be undermined by the school district. How could pornographic material like this be recommended to our children?” SOURCE: The Morning Call

“The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” is pretty tame, to be honest. Tom Wolfe always, to me at least, was a better painter of a literary landscape than a moral story teller, but, whatever.

I guess the point here is that it’s on the suggested reading list. So, as much as it pains me to say it, I can SEE their point on this. It’s almost same way that a school district isn’t going to put the Bible on a suggest reading list. 

Ack, why can’t I remember any of the other awful and immoral books I read in high school? There have to be like 100 more examples that are way worse than “Kool-Aid.”

That’s how we educate in some instances. Read the stuff that we all deem “OK” and “safe” and, if you’re lucky, you’ll get a teacher who may suggest a book that will blow your mind and get you thinking outside the box or maybe you’ll get into college and start reading some really awesome stuff. Or, if you’re really lucky, you’ll have a bunch of cool friends who will suggest some books to you as well.

However, if you’re a kid who happens to be reading this post right now, I recommend reading it. And, read a lot of Albert Camus and a bunch of Chuck Palahniuk and whatever else you can get your hands on.

Then, during and after you read it, make up your own mind. Think for yourself. All that jazz.