Recently Claire and her classmates were asked what their favorite books are. Claire said her favorite book is “Dante’s Journey”, which is a cute little children’s book we purchased for her in Florence, Italy last summer. It’s a cute little children’s book where Dante’s a little boy and goes through this land with Virgil, his doll. One level includes people who lie and what happens, and so there are these positive messages. She was excited to take this book to class, and at the end of the day, I asked her how it went. She said she wasn’t allowed to share her book “because it’s too scary.” She told me that her teacher said that, then i wondered if her teacher bothered to actually read the book. Perhaps she just saw the darker images or the child walking through a land that was depicted to be hell. Her teacher had the book put away where the kids could not see it.

So now we censor in kindergarten? It’s a child’s book, for God’s sake. It explains why you should not be greedy, why you should not lie, etc… It shows consequences. It’s not the original Dante’s Inferno (which they do teach in schools), so why censor? The kids read Where the Wild Things Art (at this age and younger) with their monsters gnashing their terrible teeth, etc…

So far I have kept my mouth shut, chose my battles and took the book home. But it still bothers me. How much censorship shall my daughter and I go through in her education over the next 13 years?

Claire sitting at the coffee table eating dinner while Dante lays under her feet in hopes of catching some crumbs, “Dante! Leave! You’re pissing me off!”

Mama and Dad’s eye brows raised toward one another.

Me, “um….” Thinking it’s my truck driver vernacular that got us to this point.

Mama, “Claire, you shouldn’t tell the dog that he’s pissing you off. Tell him he’s upsetting you. That’s an adult phrase.”

Claire’s reply. “But, Mama, what if he IS pissing me off?”