From: Ellen Levine <ellenlev_at_verizon.net>
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:24:52 -0500

;

i just got a google alert about a report on msnbc local houston station that someone is trying to take "Catch a Tiger by the Toe" off

the shelves of an elementary school library because it's challenged as racist!!!!! The "bad kid" bully in the book challenges Jamie, the

main character, when she says says "catch a TIGER by the toe," telling her it's nigger. Inept as I am in trying to post comments, I

ended up posting my comment on the report site twice - but here it is

just once. and here's the site: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35611530/:

"I am stunned and appalled at the suggestion that my novel, “Catch a

Tiger by the Toe,” is racist. The novel takes place in 1953 and depicts the social and political outrages that took place during the height of the McCarthy era. Had the critic read the book and not simply reacted to a word, she might have understood the context and seen that the teenager who uses the racist slur is a bully, the “bad

guy,” and actually rather pathetic. In the novel the main character

and her family denounce and reject racial and ethnic stereotyping. To

remove a book from library shelves for the use of a word is to travel

down that mindless but painfully destructive McCarthy road once again. Have we learned nothing?"

I'll contact NCAC on monday. Any other thoughts? Thanks!

ellen
Received on Sun 28 Feb 2010 04:24:52 PM CST