OCEAN CITY, NJ — A popular young adult graphic novel was criticized by some Ocean City parents for containing inappropriate content after it was sold at a recent book fair.
The novel, “Heartstopper” by Alice Oseman, tells the love story between two teenage boys and has been adapted into a popular Netflix series.
Kevin Schaffer, a father who ran on the “Conservative Family Values” slate that lost the Board of Education election, was one parent who complained that the book was available to his fourth grader.
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“It’s pornography,” Schaffer said of the book. “It’s pedophilia.”
Schaffer, waving around illustrations from the novel that showed two boys kissing, reiterated that the book was “straight pornography” and said that his disapproval had nothing to do with it being gay.
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He said that it was “inappropriate” for a fourth grader to see a boy kissing another boy.
“It’s not anti-gay,” Schaffer said. “It’s anti-inappropriate, and this is inappropriate. That’s the bottom line.”
Scholastic, which publishes the series, recommends “Heartstopper” for ages 14 to 18.
Christina Ardelean, an Ocean City mother, said that she “couldn’t believe it” when she saw pictures of the book.
“There’s profanity there,” Ardelean said of “Heartstopper.” “They say, ‘get the condom out.'”
She said she didn’t want to “overly-sexualize” her child, and that the content was not age-appropriate.
Interim Superintendent Scott McCartney said it was the fault of Scholastic, who supplied the books to the school.
“We’ve told Scholastic that [“Heartstopper”] is not appropriate, and they’ve removed that series not only for our book fair, but for book fairs for the age that we’re talking,” he said.
McCartney said he thought some of the confusion came from the fact that the intermediate school spans fourth to eighth grade, but he agreed that the content wasn’t appropriate for any students.
“We’ve sat down as a school district, as a superintendent I’ve given direction about how we can do that better,” McCartney said. “But we’ve done that in a collaborative approach with the principal, the staff member, with regard to books.”
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