Crude sex book 'deeply immoral'

From the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, first published Friday 28th May 1999.

MORAL campaigners in Preston say that a book designed to get teenagers to read should be banned after they discovered that one story contained references to wife beating, lesbians and crude sex.

The book, called the Grown Ups Book of Books, was published earlier this year as part of World Book Day, which aimed to promote reading.

Youngsters at schools were given a £1 voucher to buy one of two books containing extracts from other books in a bid to get them reading. One of the books, called the Children's Book of Books, was aimed a primary school children, while teenagers were advised to buy the adult version.

Scores of local schools took part in the reading scheme, which is promoted by the book industry and backed by the BBC.

But one of the stories in the Grown Ups Book of Books was an extract from The Cybergypsies by Indra Sinha.

Tony Mullett, from the Clean Up Preston Campaign, said: "It is absolutely disgraceful that we should be encouraging impressionable teenagers into buying a book of this nature.

"We should be suggesting more appropriate books instead of this type of trash which is disgusting and deeply immoral."

And he rounded on the people who suggested teenagers should buy it, adding: "It is absolutely reprehensible that this is being shown to teenagers as an example of what they should be reading.

"The people responsible should have stone put around their necks and thrown into the nearest pond.

"So-called moral liberalism has gone too far and is destroying the soul of our young who need protecting."

A BBC spokesman said: "This book was not actually sent to schools. It was part of World Book Day, which we support but is organised by the book industry."

No-one from the book industry or the Department for Education and Employment, who also backed the event, was available for comment.

A Lancashire County Council spokesman said: "The organisers by-passed us and went straight to the schools so we played no part in it."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.

Archive Home