Robin Cody has bowdlerized his own coming of age novel, cutting out the juicy bits in a new edition for teaching purposes.
In one, the book's main characters -- all teens -- spend the night in a hotel room in The Dalles. It's a comic scene that has been one of Cody's favorites for out-loud readings. But it involves alcohol and sex, and Cody understood parents' and teachers' discomfort with the messages the scene might send to high schoolers.Cody removed this scene and toned down another that occurs in the woods near some mating salmon. He also replaced a few expletives.
"It looks like I'm caving to right-wing pressure," he said.
But in fact, Cody said he felt the book did not depend on those elements and regretted that they would cause students to miss some other important themes.