Anyone who’s unfamiliar with the reference can click the smiley in Post #25.
I was reading “classroom editions” (aka: cleaned-up) versions of Shakespeare 30 years ago. I specifically remember reading Romeo and Juliet as a high school freshman, then discovering that certain naughty lines had been redacted or cleaned up when I found the play from another source – and these didn’t even involve cussing, just naughty imagery or wordplay.
I wouldn’t mind my 12-year old reading the original Martian. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to be a teacher trying to lead a classroom full of 12-year old boys through a passage that begins “Well, I’m fucked.” Class is pretty much over at that point. So, I don’t think this is a travesty if it gets more kids reading it.
Concur
The “science the shit out of this” line came from the screenwriter. It’s not in the book.
In my experience, the main problem with having middle school kids (and high school kids) read The Martian is that somebody always makes a crack about “poo-tatoes.”
But what about the disturbing references to music and television from the 1970s? Surely those must be removed, unless we want children asking their parents (or grandparents!) about such things as “Three’s Company” or “The Six Million Dollar Man”.
That would be damned embarrassing!
I’ll just be thankful it wasn’t added to the book as “Jesus the shit out of this”.
I know. Or imagine some kid asking “Granddad - in school I heard about something called “Abba” - that wasn’t real was it?”
“Susie, I’m sorry to say, Abba is real. But we defeated them at the battle of Waterloo, which really Rocked the Boat, and turned the whole Beat Around, leading to Happy Days for all.”
On a similar note, a few of the schools I’ve taught at have had visits from famous young adult authors. At first I thought that it was really nice of the authors to go on tours like that… but then I realized that in every case, in the months prior to such a visit, every single English class in the school was reading one or two of that author’s books. It’s still nice of the authors, of course, but it’s also good business.