School bans popular 1994 book

BEULAH, N.D. (AP) — The Beulah School Board has voted to ban the book “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” a 1994 best seller about a Georgia murder, from the high school library.

The board voted 4-3 Thursday to remove the copy of the book by John Berendt, which was made into a 1997 movie directed by Clint Eastwood. The story involves four murder trials and an assortment of Savannah, Ga., characters, including a voodoo priestess and a transvestite.

Beulah vocational agriculture teacher Keith Bohn and Kathy Bohn, a school janitor, asked the school to remove the book after their son brought it home.

Keith Bohn said he did not read the entire book, but he read enough.

“I don’t believe a book like that belongs in school,” Bohn said. “We have a responsibility as a school to provide true educational materials,” he said. “We do not put actual pornography out in our library.”

Superintendent Rob Lech said a school review committee unanimously recommended the book stay in the library. That decision was appealed to the School Board.

None of the Beulah School Board members have read the book, though some researched it, said Board Chairman Phil Eastgate, who voted to remove it from the library.

Eastgate said he plans a special meeting in which board members may consider an alternative to an “in or out” decision. One option is to move books to a restricted section that requires parental consent for students to read, he said.

Olivia O’Quinn, a high school senior and writer for the school student newspaper, said she watched the 1997 movie version of “Midnight” because she could not get the book in Beulah.

Her reaction was, “Welcome to society. There was no shock factor.”

She said she and other students talked about other library books that might be judged worse.

“Where does it end? If they censor one book, what else will they pull out of our library?” O’Quinn said.

School board member Dwight Hatzenbuhler voted against banning the book. He said that while he might not like it, he did not want to impose his personal views on others.

“I don’t think the board can decide what’s in the library,” he said. “It’s not our job.”

“Midnight” is part of an accelerated reading program with an accompanying test for each book in it. The books became part of the library’s inventory two years ago, when Beulah acquired the reading program material from the Golden Valley-Dodge district in a consolidation.

It had been checked out only once before it went to the Bohn home.

Beulah High School librarian Kathy Cline was chairman of the book review committee.

“I’m not willing to pull a book off the shelf because someone doesn’t like it,” she said.

Keith Bohn said young people get confused if parents let them read or watch anything out there.

“I was exercising my right to stand up for what I believe in,” he said.

Tags: midnight in the garden, book, beulah, good, evil