Ohio: High School Assigning Anti-Zionist Palestinian Propaganda ("A Stone In My Hand") as Literature

Allow me to introduce myself. I am the grandmother of new ninth grader, C xxxxx. C, her sister, and her parents live with my husband and myself. I am very involved in the lives of my grandchildren and we regularly discuss educational topics. These girls do not play video games and spend their time texting. We play board games and work together on projects and interact a lot. My husband and I both work full time and invest the rest of our lives in our family.  It is Connie who brought this book to my attention and asked if I would read it to get my opinion.  

A book of historical fiction called "A stone in my hand" was assigned to the class as mandatory reading prior to the first day of school.  It is written in the first person voice of a Muslim Arab child living in the Gaza during the intifada years of 1987 - 1993. I was more than stunned and appalled at this agenda for English and Social studies assigned to ninth graders this year. I have no problem with historically accurate studies, studies of other cultures and religions. But I do have a problem with a slanted presentation that is clearly anti-Semitic, anti-Christian and pro-Islam. Not only am I offended at the book, but today I had a chance to review the the worksheets sent home as homework for this 9 week course.  

The worksheet's title is "Islam Project - Growth of Islam". Islam is a very specific religion. So this, in my opinion, is religious indoctrination masked as Social Studies and English. This is not an elective class on world religions.  How in the world did this happen? .I want to know at what level the decision was made to choose this book and this agenda and why there was not also offered an alternative to students whose families may be Jewish or Messianic gentile believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? I instructed my granddaughter not to read out loud the prayer to allah on page 8 of this book. It is a violation of our religion to speak a prayer to another god. I regret she even had to read it in order to comply with this assignment. I certainly hope there are not any children of Jewish origin in the ninth grade there. This course of study is the height of insult to them. The very first page of this book contains a translated "nursery" rhyme, written by a young girl living in the Gaza: 

"I am the child of PalestineI have my cause and I have my rights/When I see my older brother/Taken up into outlaws' hands/I cry out the international cry/That if they shoot me to my death/I'll clutch a stone in my right hand/And never forget the martyrs' cause."

Understand that the "outlaw" is any Jewish person and the "martyr" is an Islamic Arab child who was taught that suicide bombing is a righteous thing to do. 

Go read the whole thing at Atlas Shrugs.