The Galveston County Daily News

FRIENDSWOOD — The community of Friendswood is neck deep in discussion about the novel “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.”

Unfortunately, the discussion is not literary.

On Monday, Friendswood Mayor Kim Brizendine issued a proclamation declaring Jan. 31 Galveston County Reads Day for “all citizens, teens to seniors.”

On Friday, he issued a press release that expressed concern about the content of the book.

Brizendine said he regretted endorsing the novel. He also said the Friendswood library board would be reviewing the placement of the book in the library.

On the night of the proclamation, the Galveston County Reads committee presented council members with the novel.

Karen Stanley, chairman of the committee, said it was an effort to join a national project promoting “one city, one book.”

The idea is to get everyone in a city — or in this case everyone in Galveston County — to read and discuss the same book.

“What we’re trying to do is promote community discussion,” she said.

She might have gotten more than she bargained for. Friendswood council member John LeCour was not happy with the selection. He said the book could “pollute” young minds.

“My main issue is the profanity in the book,” he said.

He said he had read most of the book. He said he felt the profanity did not add to the “intellectual value” of the topic.

“I personally don’t think it is good literature,” he said. “I think it will be popular for 15 minutes and than it will be forgotten.”

The award-winning, bestselling book by Mark Haddon tells the story of an autistic teenager trying to solve the mystery of a dead dog he finds on his neighbor’s lawn.

Councilman Chris Peden had not read the book, but he said it was more than just profanity bothering him.

He did note the profanity was not buried deep within the book. He said he was disturbed to read the “F” word on Page 4.

“Later in the book, the kid says there is no God and there is no life after death,” he said. “Clearly, these are not ideas we should promote to kids.

“I am not saying the book should be pulled off the shelves. We just shouldn’t be using taxpayers’ dollars promoting and purchasing a book the community wouldn’t approve of.”

Stanley said no taxpayer money was used for the books the committee donated to the council and area libraries. Private donations fund the organization, she said.

Pat Scales wrote a book called “Teaching Banned Books” and she is a rotating member of the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee. She said while the book is “extremely strong,” she thinks the city council members are doing the community a disservice.

She said the community could use the book as a teaching tool, and community discussions could legitimately address whether the profanity is necessary in the book.

She also said council members aren’t giving teenagers enough credit.

“I think they are afraid of their teenagers,” Scales said.

Peden said he felt the book deals with issues young teens are not yet ready for.

“We should give them wings, but they should be smaller when they are young,” he said. “This is too much, too soon.

“We’re talking about young children who are not mature enough to make proper decisions.”

Peden said if he had to recommend a book for the Friendswood community, he would point to Booker T. Washington’s “Up From Slavery.” He said it teaches character building and hard work.

Scales said no matter how the council members tried to package their feelings, it all boiled down to censorship.

“In the country that is supposed to be the freest in the world, we are trying so hard to control our young minds,” she said. “Just because they read it in a book doesn’t mean they will go out and say it.”

She said she was almost unsure how to respond to the councilmen’s discomfort with the novel’s protagonist dealing with existential questions such as God and the after-life.

“Not every character that we read in literature — or even in real life — will mirror our own values,” she said, “What literature can do is let us see all sides of life.”

She said the book has many merits, including teaching tolerance and compassion. She said she feels often politicians look too hard at individual words without considering the whole work.

Peden didn’t buy that.

“A lot of liberal do-gooders say we should take the book in its entirety,” he said. “That’s like saying a man is a great deacon at his church, a great Little League coach, a great provider for his family, but he beats his wife. That is not a good man.

“The firestorm is all the liberal pacifists who are trying to make us out to be book burning, goose-stepping Nazis. That’s not the case at all. There are plenty of books without profanity we could promote.”