CINCINNATI — Milford Exempted Village Schools is reviewing a novel used in Grade 10 English classes after two parents filed complaints.

According to our media partners at the Cincinnati Enquirer, one of the complainants said the book exposed her child to “an unhealthy view of sexuality, pornography, and most importantly, hindering her religious beliefs.”

Located in the northeast suburb of Cincinnati, Milford Schools serves approximately 6,600 students in Clermont County. Its high school is ranked among the top 60 schools in Ohio, according to US News & World Report magazine.

Julia Alvarez’s novel ‘In the Time of the Butterflies’ was published in 1994 and adopted into the Milford curriculum by the school board during the 2014-2015 school year, Milford’s acting director of communications said , Melinda Briggs. Set in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s, the book is historical fiction and follows the involvement of three sisters in the resistance against the dictatorship of General Rafael Leónidas Trujillo.

Other parents, students and members of the Milford community have been posting about the novel on social media in recent weeks, both condemning and defending the use of the book at a high school.

Books banned in Ohio

“In the Time of the Butterflies” is a Notable Book from the American Library Association and was selected for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read program, which offers grants to support community reading programs designed around a single book.

The book was removed from the curriculum of a New York high school in the fall of 2000. The Port Washington School Board disapproved of Alvarez’s novel due to an included drawing that shows how to build a bomb, according to the New York Times.

“In the Time of the Butterflies” is currently not listed in Pen America’s latest index of books banned from schools in 2021 and 2022, which includes nearly 1,600 titles. The only Ohio district listed in this index is the Hudson City School District, which banned four books in the fall: Inio Asano’s “A Girl on the Shore”; “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison; “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe and “642 Things to Write About” by San Francisco Writers’ Grotto.

The Town of Hudson District made national news when former Hudson Mayor Craig Shubert falsely accused the district of distributing “essentially…child pornography.” The book “642 Things to Write About,” used with high school students taking a course for college credit, included the prompt, “Write a sex scene you wouldn’t show your mom.” Shubert resigned in February 2022.

Complaints: Novel’s ‘sexually graphic’ content threatens Christian values

Requests for Milford Schools to remove “In the Time of Butterflies” from school curricula and the library were submitted in late April by two different parents in the district.

The Enquirer does not name them for privacy reasons.

These were the only requests to go through central office in the five years Paul Daniels spent at Milford, he said. Daniels is the director of curriculum and secondary education for the district.

One of the parents wrote that she had read the first four chapters of the book and several pages of the fifth chapter, and thinks the theme of the book is “sex and naughtiness”. There are 12 chapters in the novel.

She wrote that the book normalizes sexual abuse and necromancy, or communicating with the dead, and implies that “it is part of Christianity when it is not.”

When asked in the complaint form what she thought would be the outcome of reading the book, the parent wrote: ‘Children who think all this perversion and meanness is normal, resulting in a vision very unhealthy sexuality as well as some who are more likely to dabble in the occult resulting in harm to others, self-harm, suicides, etc.

The other complainant wrote that she had read the novel in its entirety and did not recommend it for any age group except college “if necessary”. She said the novel was “difficult to follow”.

“To give away this book is to willfully and knowingly offer obscenity to minors,” the second parent wrote.

One of the questions on the form asked if the complainant was aware of the book’s judgment by professional reviewers.

“Due to the graphic content of this novel,” the parent said his family’s Christian values ​​supersede “a review. Reviews are subjective.”

The book debate has ‘exploded’ on Facebook

Aidan Sowder, 18, is a senior at Milford High School. He said he read “In the Time of Butterflies” in his second English class. He said the book mentions sex and puberty, but “it’s not necessarily very graphic, it’s pretty tame by high school book standards”.

About a week and a half ago, Sowder said he saw a Facebook post on the Milford OH Neighborhood Group detailing the book’s sexual content. The poster called it “disgusting” and demanded the removal of “In the Time of the Butterfl” from Milford’s curricula as well as the removal of professors who teach the subject.

On Friday, the post had over 700 comments and was shared over 20 times.

“It kind of exploded in our community,” Sowder said. Other posts in private Facebook groups were “much, much more aggressive”, he said, calling teachers “healers” and “sex predators” and issuing death threats against teachers and professors. .

Sowder said he doesn’t think the book should be banned, although he understands there are people in the community who wouldn’t want their children to read it.

According to district policy, parents have the right to inspect any instructional materials used in its students’ curriculum. They can ask their child to omit a given book and agree on an alternative text with the student’s teacher.

District forms committee for review

Milford Superintendent John Spieser convened a review board in response to formal complaints by district policy, Briggs said.

He said the committee is made up of seven members and is a mix of teachers, administrators and parents.

The committee is currently reading the novel and expects to complete its review by Friday, May 13, Briggs said.

The Enquirer contacted all five members of the Milford School Board on the matter. All declined to comment or did not respond.

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