Elementary school pulls library book that teaches kids how to draw Satan

Stacy J. Willis

Friday, March 3, 2000 | 11:19 a.m.

Learn to read, write and draw pictures of Satan.

A local elementary school is being criticized by a Christian pastor for having a library book that teaches students to sketch caricatures of the devil.

The principal of Joseph Neal Elementary School removed the book from the school's shelves Thursday, pending review by the library committee.

And while the complaint is primarily based on religion, the controversy is further exacerbated by a culture of fear and confusion about school violence.

"Draw 50 Monsters," written by Lee J. Ames and published by Doubleday, was checked out of the public school's library by a student this week.

It instructs budding artists how to sketch cartoons of horned men named "B.L. Zeebub" and "Lewis E. Furr," aka, Satan.

Concerned Christian parents took the book to their pastor.

"I object to it. I think it's abhorrent. This book is based on teaching children to mimic images of Satan," said the Rev. Russ Daines, pastor of El Camino Southern Baptist Church.

"It is offensive to all people of faith. If it were a book that taught children to draw the pope or (Christian leader) Billy Graham, the politically correct crowd would be enraged ...

"People may think I'm going overboard, but in the culture of Columbine, in a culture where kids are killing kids, we can do better than teaching them to draw the devil at school," Daines said.

The book also includes comic renderings of Medusa, Frankenstein, a pirate with a bloody knife in his teeth and an array of demons. "It's gory. It's bloody and macabre. There is plenty of that outside of school. As a taxpayer, I'm hoping that our principals are sharper than this," said Daines.

Neal Principal Lee Douglass said she was not aware that the book was in her library. The new Clark County school opened in August.

"I will review it and pull it from the shelf and have it reviewed by our library committee," said Douglass, who has been a school administrator for 16 years.

"They will decide whether it stays or goes."

The library committee consists of 12 people -- six teachers and six parents.

Mel Lipman, a former ACLU board member who teaches constitutional law at the University of Phoenix in Las Vegas, said that it is probably inappropriate for a public school to have a book that depicts "a religious figure that is offensive to a particular faith."

But, he said, if it is an issue of sheltering children from images that may be considered violent, "my gut feeling is not to censor anything but explain to the children what the context is."

"I think it's not harmful to expose children to the real world," Lipman said.

Stacy J. Willis is a reporter for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-4011 or by e-mail at willis@lasvegassun.com