Okay, I'm finally motivated for this.

I've ranted before about the dumbing down of our public education system. I've wondered in my available moments about school book choices. Here's some concrete examples I can provide.

In eighth grade, my class read Paul Zindel's The Pigman and S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders. [We even watched the movie for the second.] Neither of these contain really objectionable material; they don't even have swearing if I remember right. They kiss--once--in the first; and they do drink beer. The second does have a murder but it is related not witnessed.

Not so bad. But are they literature? Are they worthy of study in school? Aren't there better things out there?

Before I'd gotten there, a class titled something like Horror Literature had read Poe, Blatty's The Exorcist, King's The Dead Zone, Levin's Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby, and Amityville Horror. No joke. Someone else I know studied Salinger's Catcher in the Rye in ninth grade. I have a feeling there's somebody I know who might find such an idea... problematic.

Then I read about a school district bowdlerizing Girl, Interrupted for class. Why? Again, I ask: aren't there better things out there that they don't need to tear pages out of to present in class?

Just to make me feel better (and test your memory), what's your nomination for the worst book you had to read in school? Not most boring; the one with the least redeeming value.