A literary brouhaha over Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" came to a close this week as Glendale Unified school board members voted to approve the book for advanced placement students.
The 4-0 decision capped a months-long debate during which district administrators, teachers, students and parents wrangled over whether the nonfiction book was appropriate for teenage readers. School board member Mary Boger, who had spoken out against including the book on the list of approved reading material, abstained from the vote, the Glendale News Press reported.
"I think the board did a service to the community by talking about the importance of literature in the public school curriculum," said longtime Glendale High School English teacher Holly Ciotti. "Not only am I looking forward to assigning the book to my AP students, they are chomping at the bit to read it."
"In Cold Blood" became a point of contention last spring after Ciotti requested to add it to a list of books approved for AP language, a course that enrolls top 11th-grade English students and focuses on rhetoric and debate.
The work — first published in 1965 and widely read by high school and college students throughout the country — received unanimous approval from the district's English Curriculum Study Committee. But it raised red flags with the Secondary Education and PTA councils.
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