11/22/2006 2:39:00 PM CHS students take 'Grape'
fight to Net CHS student leaders seeking signatures for letter calling for review of Cordes decision
A group of Carroll High school students have made T-shirts with free speech quotations as a protest to the removal of the book "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" from a literature class.
Several Carroll High School student leaders believe school officials were shortsighted in removing a popular book, “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” from the literature curriculum. The students are wearing shirts with well-known quotations about free speech to protest Superintendent Rob Cordes’ decision to pull the book. Pictured are (in front from left) Andy Lange, Adam Lange, Shaun Kasperbauer and Kellie Proctor. In back (from left) are Natalie Reppa, Ian Muller, Alissa Caltrider, Katie Naberhaus and Kyle Bennett.
Nearly 250 people have entered an online social network group dedicated to the "un-ban" of the novel "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" in a Carroll High School literature class.
Organizers of the effort on the Web network Facebook - "Un-ban Gilbert Grape! Censorship Is Wrong" - say they plan to collect signatures for a letter calling for a formal school district review of Superintendent Rob Cordes' recent decision to pull the book from CHS' literature-to-film class.
Students from Carroll High School, Kuemper Catholic High School, Glidden-Ralston, Audubon, other schools and local high school alumni now in colleges and universities around the country have become "members" of the Web group. Students from high schools in other states, such as Colorado, also have joined, although the vast majority of those participating are local.
Many "Gilbert Grape" Web participants likely will sign the letter, says CHS senior Adam Lange, the student body treasurer and one of the Facebook group's administrators.
Several CHS students also are wearing T-shirts emblazoned with free-speech quotations to show support for the shelved novel, said senior Kellie Proctor, 18, who found a number of the free-speech quotations and created the T-shirt messages and designs.
The shirts proclaim ideas like, "Censorship feeds the dirty mind more than the four-letter word" and "Think for yourself and let others do the same" and "books won't stay banned and ideas won't go to jail."
Cordes told the Daily Times Herald on Monday he removed the book because of concerns about an oral-sex scene. He acknowledged that he didn't read the full book before rendering a decision.
At a school board meeting Monday night one parent, DeAnn Pudenz, compared "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" to Penthouse magazine, and held copies of both up before the board to make her point.
The brewing controversy over the book has made statewide and national news in recent days.
And for good reason, says Lange, who believes the book, written by Iowa author Peter Hedges, connects with many young people.
"It's one of the few books the majority of my peers enjoyed and read," said Lange, who is active in many activities at Carroll High School.
Lange took the class in which the book was taught last year and said portions of "Gilbert Grape" that dealt with the disabled were meaningful because he has a relative with cerebral palsy.
Moreover, Lange, who turns 18 on Monday, said the book isn't erotica, but rather a work of fiction that approaches life honestly.
"If asked about 'Gilbert Grape' two years later, I would not have thought about sex," Lange said in a Tuesday interview with the Daily Times Herald. "To be honest I heard much worse riding a public school bus in third grade."
Lange and his friend Shaun Kasperbauer, also a CHS senior and member of the Student Senate, were part of a group that met with Cordes about two weeks ago to voice their concerns about the book's removal from the class.
For his part, Kasperbauer said he believes Cordes' intent with the decision was well-meaning.
"I respect the fact that he's looking out for the best interests of the students," Kasperbauer, 18, said. "I respect that greatly."
But he said the book deserves a more thorough hearing in the court of public opinion and shouldn't be left to the fate of one man's interpretation of selected paragraphs.
"Taking the book out of context has made the book more popular," Kasperbauer said. "I really do enjoy that."
He said fellow students are checking out copies of the book from the school library and buying the book for themselves. Many students can be seen carrying "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" around school as well.
The 1991 book deals with a young man's experiences with his troubled family in a small Iowa town.
Kasperbauer said characters in the book are "going through a lot of the same things our classmates are going through. They're stuck in a small environment, everyone knows them."
He added that the book is the only one he can recall reading in the class written by an Iowa author.
"I think that book's the easiest to relate," Kasperbauer said.
Kasperbauer, who plans to attend New York University next fall, and Lange, who plans to attend Grinnell College, say they are pleased a number of college students with Carroll-area ties have indicated support on Facebook.
"When we're in college we're going to face much worse material than a couple of paragraphs in a book," Lange said.
Senior Alissa Caltrider said that in today's popular culture "Gilbert Grape" is hardly the book to single out with content objections.
"Comparing Gilbert Grape to Penthouse is like comparing 'Titanic' to Paris Hilton's sex videos," said Caltrider, who plans to attend Northwest Missouri State University next fall.
Katie Naberhaus, an 18-year-old senior planning to attend the University of Iowa, says the book is one students read without prodding from educators.
"I don't like to read fiction books for the fun of it, but it was one of the few books I actually really enjoyed," Naberhaus said. "I read another book by Peter Hedges, 'An Ocean in Iowa,' after that. It got me to read another book."
She said the "Grape" book had a number of themes young Iowans can appreciate.
Naberhaus, a member of the Student Senate, said students didn't focus on the sexual angles in the book, or get any sense of prurience in reading it in class.
"Actually after they said that, I'm like 'I guess there were parts like that in the book,'" she said. "But few and far between it seemed like. It wasn't by any means the focus of the book. In class we never discussed those portions of the book. We only discussed those portions of the book that were meaningful to our lives."
Adam Lange's younger brother, Andy, 16, the CHS sophomore class president, said administrators and parents should read the full book before making decisions on it.
"For one, the people that are trying to take it away haven't even read the full book," Andy Lange said. "I don't see how they can claim there's no value to us when they don't even know the entire story."
He said the analogy with a pornographic magazine is outrageous.
"One is a 300-page plus book that has a few little sections that are descriptive, that has real value to you and one is a porn," Andy Lange said.
Lange said it is naïve to believe that students can be sheltered from the realities of life, and the often sordid world of the Internet, by yanking a single book.
"I don't think any kid read that book and thought, 'Oh my God, what is this?'" Andy Lange said. "Everyone has heard things much worse things in the hallway at school or on the bus to school or on the Internet. Pulling this book really is not going to shelter a kid."
Andy Lange said the "Gilbert Grape" episode is undercutting student respect for the administration.
"I lost some respect that they can just listen to one person's view and take away the right," Andy Lange said. "I don't think they heard the other side of it very well at all."
He suggested that if Cordes' standard were applied to all books in the school "I don't see what books can stay in the library."
CHS junior Ian Muller, 16, said the book is "perfectly good."
"I personally read the book in two days after the controversy happened," Muller said.
Muller acknowledged that there were elements of the book that could be viewed as controversial. But that's the case with most worthwhile books, he added.
"The most absurd thing I have heard so far is the comparison to a pornography magazine," Muller said.
Like Andy Lange, Muller said, this incident impacts students' views of the administration.
"I think I have lost a little respect for Mr. Cordes after the stunt he pulled," Muller said. "I think it's terrible that we allow one or two or three people to basically decide what goes in our curriculum. The students already know about the stuff, and the references really did not contain a whole lot of information."
Senior Natalie Reppa, who will be 18 in a week and plans to attend either Northwestern or the University of Notre Dame and major in journalism and English, said the issue relates directly to free speech and respect for authors' ideas.
"When I read a book I respect the way it was written and the work the author put into it," Reppa said. "To base your opinion of a book based on one page or paragraph is ridiculous because you do not understand the full impact of what the author was trying to say. Obviously the author's point was not that page or it would have been the entire book."
The mission statement of the "Un-ban Gilbert Grape" Facebook group is as follows:
"This group is for all of you out there that think the banning of 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape' from our high school curriculum is wrong.
"Parents were already notified of its content, and had to sign a permission slip for their child to read it. The idea that a very small minority of students can dictate the curriculum of the entire school is ludicrous.
"There has never been a problem with students receiving alternative assignments if they object to material, so why is this book handled differently?
"In a school district with ever decreasing reading test scores, and an increased emphasis on reading such as mandatory free reading in homeroom, why is the district shooting themselves in the foot by taking away some of the few books which make the average student actually enjoy and want to read?"
