The parent of a 14-year-old at Schofield Middle School complained to school officials and the police after a teacher at the school reportedly read to his class from the novel. The parent described Ender's Game as "pornographic", local press reported, and complained about its subject matter. Like The Hunger Games, Ender's Game sees teenagers pitting their battle skills against each other. In Card's Hugo and Nebula award-winning story, though, the hero Ender has been recruited for the Battle School, where Earth's most talented children train for future conflict against human's alien enemies, known as the buggers. Despite the violence it describes, Ender's Game is included on the American Library Association's list of the best 100 books for young adults.The Aiken Standard reported that the teacher had been placed on administrative leave last week while police and school investigations looked into whether he breached school policy — or the law — when reading to his class from Ender's Game and two other novels: Agatha Christie's Curtain: Poirot's Last Case and The Devil's Paintbox by Victoria McKernan, the story of two orphans journeying through the frontier west.
To be fair, Hercules Poirot is RATHER erotic.
This story brought to mind this week's episode of Slate's Culture Gabfest, in which guest Elizabeth Banks starts yelling about how hypocritical it is that parents who let their kids watch Jersey Shore could possible be uptight about the violence in The Hunger Games. (Also discussed in the episode: Mike Daisey and The New Girl. It's a good one.)
