Hansel and Gretel banned in Chicago

CEO Byrd-Bennett has denounced the children's book Hansel and Gretel, as "too grim to be read by first graders." She has reportedly sent her library purification teams in to elementary schools across the city with orders to remove every copy from the shelves and destroy them.

Hansel and Gretel, as you may know, is the nightmarish story of two small children whose parents abandon them in order to save on food costs. After several failed attempts to find their way out of the forest, H & G are lured into the gingerbread house of a cannibal witch who puts Hansel in a cage and makes a slave out of Gretel. The witch plans to fatten Hansel up and then eat them both. But the children escape by burning the witch alive in an oven, stealing her money and then finding their way back home to live happily ever after with their dad (mean old mom died while they were away).

Talk about graphic images. No youngster should be exposed to such a horror story, said BBB.

Just in -- Protesting teachers, librarians, publishers, parents and students have now been told by CPS Liar-in-Chief Becky Carroll that the book was "never banned." Rather, it has been pulled from the first-grade curriculum until every teacher goes through an intensive 6-week training program at the Pearson Institute on Early Childhood Literacy in order to become H & G Certified.

Despite the book's removal, questions about Hansel and Gretel will still be on state tests.