The widespread effort throughout the country to ban books from school libraries and classrooms is shameful and also, at times, baffling.

The New York Times reported today (“Texas school district removes Bible and Anne Frank adaptation in back-to-school sweep,” Aug. 17) that a school district in Texas ordered the Bible to be taken from the shelves so that it can be reviewed once again under guidelines designed, according to a school board official, “to protect kids from sexually explicit content.” He added that a previous inquiry into a list of challenged material that included Christianity’s Good Book “exposed children to pornographic material.” If that’s not confusing, I don’t know what is.

Apparently these rock-ribbed censors were never teenagers – or if they were, they’ve forgotten what adolescence is all about. The one sure way to make a high school kid want to read a book – and do anything to find a copy – is to ban it.

Go for it, school boards! You’re handing kids their certified “must read to be cool” lists.

Ellen D. Murphy
Portland