Brianne Ries

I don’t know how many of you had to read the book “Fahrenheit 451” in high school. I did, and I remember the visualization of thousands of books being burned to a crisp in the dead of night. It’s a memory I choose not to recall because I believe burning any piece of literature, no matter the content, is ridiculous.

Last week, an Oregon mother found her way into headlines after discovering a book that her 13-year-old son checked out from his school’s library. She was highly offended and hardly amused by “The Book of Bunny Suicides,” written by Andy Riley. The mother, Taffey Anderson, was so outraged by the book that she filed a report to have the book removed and banned from the library at Central Linn High School in Halsey, Ore.

While school officials seemed more than happy to look into the matter, newspapers reported that Anderson refused to return the book, saying that she would burn it.

Really? Don’t get me wrong; a book about different ways for bunnies to commit suicide is not my idea of a good read. I find the humorous approach to a serious topic distasteful, and I would not want my children to read a copy.

Who’s to say, though, that any other child, teenager or even an adult should be unable to read the book because of my personal beliefs?

I, unfortunately, could not get my hands on a copy of the book before deadline. Our library does not have the book, but, according to the Nicholson Library Web site, a copy has been ordered as of Oct. 22. However, on Amazon.com, I was able to preview select pages from the book.

The book is a series of black-and -white sketches, resembling images you would see in an everyday comic series. The various ways the bunnies wind up dead range from sitting in front of a magnifying glass with the sun creating a beam of heat to a bunny using a trampoline under a helicopter.

The photos do not depict any drastic images, and there are no written descriptions to go along each drawing.

Anderson said in an interview Oct. 22 that she has thought about it a bit more and decided to return the book. She said she wants the book to at least be held behind the counter for more mature readers.

While the drama of book burning seems to be diminished, this isn’t the first time a book has nearly become kindling, and it probably won’t be the last.

One of the great things about our country is that we have the right to read or ignore books we don’t appreciate. Regardless of their literary value, a book is a book, and book burning is a no-go in my mind.