JC student’s tongue-in-cheek letter to NLB

As a Singaporean youth, I applaud your momentous decision to remove three books from the children’s section to protect the delicate minds of young children. To this end, I would like to submit a few other suggestions of books to be pulled off the shelves to prevent them from further poisoning children’s minds.

Firstly, the countless classic fairy tales which generations upon generations of children have enjoyed. Notably: 1) Snow White, which promotes violence and superficial fixation on external beauty. 2) Sleeping Beauty, which pushes forth the idea of a typical damsel in distress where the heroine does absolutely nothing useful at all and has to wait for a handsome prince to rescue her. 3) The Three Little Pigs, which promotes destruction of property, as well as violent murder in the form of the wolf’s gruesome demise.

Secondly, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Sherlock Holmes stories. In the same light as the already removed books, the Sherlock Holmes series has blatant LGBT undertones by actually having two male bachelors sharing a flat together, sending a signal to children that they are in a relationship. In line with the removed books, this is clearly not something children’s delicate minds are ready for and I wholeheartedly recommend their immediate removal.

Thirdly, the Harry Potter series, where the first book alone is filled with blatant corrupting innuendoes such as “The Dursleys got into bed.” and “He pushed the door ajar and peered inside – and a horrible scene met his eyes. Snape and Filch were inside, alone.”

Such horrific sexual innuendo must certainly not be allowed to poison the minds of young children any further. Speaking of poison, most of the ingredients used for Potions classes are highly toxic and including them is akin to teaching and encouraging children to poison people.

Though this is but a fraction of the countless abominations polluting the minds of young Singaporean children, I trust that this is but the first step in a long journey of purging unworthy works of fiction from the hallowed shelves of our libraries.