Last week, the father of a 15-year-old girl near Houston complained to her high school about one of the reading assignments and felt it should be banned from the school. The book? Ray Bradbury’s anti-censorship novel Fahrenheit 451. And, last week was Banned Books Week, too. Ironic. Houston Community Newspapers (pop-up warning) via Boing Boing

I’m not always sure how I feel about things like this. In this case, I’m pretty squarely for keeping the book on the curriculum, largely because it’s a darn good book, and because I don’t agree with censorship and I think the book has a necessary message. But the kicker here is that the man hasn’t even read it! Direct quote from the original article: “It’s just all kinds of filth,” said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read Fahrenheit 451.” I’m sorry, but I don’t think you should be allowed to challenge a book unless you’ve read it. Otherwise, how do you know that it contains “all kinds of filth,” or that the “all kinds of filth” isn’t sufficiently offset by good qualities in the book? That just makes you look willfully ignorant.

On the other hand, I do think that parents should have a say in what their children read, and I appreciate parents who care enough about their children to care what they’re reading and watching. But it seems to me that care would be better exercised by reading/watching things before they do and with them and being ready to discuss problematic issues. Dad can’t keep the world out forever, and better she learns discernment while in a safe environment than be thrown into the world wholesale in a few years when she goes to college.