Challenge news.

• One of the parents who is objecting to the use of Part-Time Indian in the ninth-grade curriculum has suggested placing warning labels on books.  Whenever people bring this idea up, I wonder how far they've thought it through.  Would Romeo & Juliet and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Graceling and Boy Toy and the entire erotica genre all get the DANGER: SEX sticker?  Would The Scarlet Letter and The World According to Garp get ADULTERY stickers?  Would Lord of the Flies and Hamlet and American Psycho and The Hunger Games get slapped with one that reads VIOLENCE INSIDE?  For that matter, would American Psycho get the SEX sticker, too?  Jeepers.  Some books would be so plastered with stickers that we wouldn't be able to see the cover art anymore.  Who would decide how much 'offensive' content was enough to warrant a label?  ETC.  [Moments later:  Actually, I may have to reconsider my previous opinion.  Because a CAUTION: DOG DEATH sticker would come in way handy in some cases.  Or maybe something a little more broad, like DANGER: MAY CAUSE UNCONTROLLABLE SOBBING.]
• In response to the ongoing Gossip Girl controversy, a Florida newspaper editorial has also brought up the idea of book ratings.  See above.
• And four short stories (by David Sedaris, Laura Lippman, Stephen King and Ernest Hemingway) have been pulled from the curriculum of an elective course in a New Hampshire high school.