Students have seen this language before

Dear Editor,

I am a seventh-grade honor roll student at Bailey Bridge Middle School. I have been following the articles about the "mature section" in our school library. Up until eighth-grade, you must have a parental signature to check out one of these books. To the surprise of parents and grandparents, we have already heard these words spoken in the halls of our school, movies [and on] our computers, cell phones and magazines sold on store shelves. In order for us not to hear such language or see explicates is unrealistic. If you want to complain about this material, complain to the authors, not the school! If my parents do not want me to watch rated R movies or read this type of material, they either don't rent them or research the books first. It's called parental control. If you don't want us exposed to language or explicit material - homeschool.

We see and hear it every day whether we are watching the news about the war or another school shooting or reading books such as "The Color Purple." To go against one book with the "F" word is to go against many different things we are exposed to every day. At our age we have had many things shown to us that our parents are unaware of. My point is we are not blind to the world around us, and books are just a small portion of what we see and hear every day.

Rachel Taylor Robison

Bailey Bridge Middle School