Parent: ‘Girl Stolen’ too Sexually Explicit, Violent for Fourth Graders

The father of a 9-year-old student Torrey Hill Intermediate School schools says the book “Girl Stolen,” a work of fiction by April Henry that describes the abduction of a 16-year-old blind girl, is sexually explicit and inappropriate for elementary schools.

Bill Bird said the book had been assigned to his fourth-grade daughter to help her meet a reading goal and he was “literally shaking” because he was “so upset” as he read it with his child, MLive reports.

It contains descriptive passages about “raping somebody and kidnapping somebody and killing somebody,” Bird said.

He said his daughter was “definitely shocked by what she read and knew it was inappropriate,” even though she didn’t know specifically what some of the words meant.

“Her real question was ‘should she be reading this material’ and [she] waited awhile to bring it up due to concern of not finishing it and missing her goal.”

According to the author April Henry’s web site, the book is recommended for teens and adults, and book distributor Scholastic lists it as appropriate for grades 8-12.

“Girl Stolen” is  the story of 16-year-old Cheyenne Wilder, who is blind, who was sick with pneumonia and sleeping in the back of her mother’s car when it was stolen from a pharmacy parking lot by Griffin, a teenager who had been stealing packages from parked cars.

The kidnapping was a mistake, as Griffin had impulsively stolen the car with her in it. But when he learned Cheyenne’s father was the captain of a major industry, he had a financial incentive to keep her.

The book has descriptive passages of Griffin tying Cheyenne’s hands behind her back while he held a gun to her head. At one point, he asked if she was a virgin and wanted to become a woman before he murdered her.

“This is pretty explicit stuff,” Bird told MLive. “For my 9-year-old daughter, talking about I can’t take this out of her mind.”

Bird’s  complaints have prompted a review of books in Lake Fenton Schools.