Banned Book

David Shannon’s A Bad Case of the Stripes is a book about a girl who contracts—I’m surmising from the cover—an unusual pigmentary disorder. The reason I’m not exactly sure how her condition came about is because as we were five pages into the book at bedtime, Olivia slammed it shut and made us promise that we’d never read it to her again. Clearly, she was having a bad case of A Bad Case.

But banning it wasn’t enough. She banished the main character—actual quote: “I don't want that girl to be in the world anymore."—and barred us from having the book in the house. In fact, I had to show her that I’d put the book in my workbag to prove that I was going to give it away to a colleague whose kids aren’t as easily startled.