My Brother Steven Is Retarded

I found this book, My Brother Steven Is Retarded, in a children's liberry's discard pile.  It was with several dozen other books that were clearly outdated.  This one stuck out to me, however, because the use of the word "Retarded" made it severely outdated.   It's not supposed to be offensive, it's an educational book of sorts that inadvertently became politically incorrect since 1977.  I'm just curious how it survived in the liberry for as long as it has.

Below, I'm including a sampling of the pages from the book. 

(note: Click on pages for enlarged view of text)

The sister, Beth, starts by sharing some of her hardships.  I get it, she's being relatable to the kids reading it who probably have negative impressions of people with mental disabilities. 

After getting over some initial fears that she'd catch retardation and that her mom did it to her brother on purpose, Beth drinks some bitch juice and unapologetically declares, "Better Steven than me!"

All right, Beth's still complaining.  She'll get over it soon.  "It's not his fault his brain was hurt": that's compassionate, sort of, right?

Several pages later, and Beth is still complaining about Steven.  He's easy to forget when he's not around, but when he is, damn...

Beth is eternally sad and there's no changing that. 

Now we're on the second to last page.  The last one will surely lead up to a more optimistic ending...

"I hope he will be happy."  Wow.  Is that a kiss-off, or what?  Nice knowing you, Steven.  You won't be my problem anymore.  

I gave this book the benefit of the doubt in spite of its use of the R-word, but it still ended up being pretty offensive.  It deserves some credit for being honest and not sugarcoating the experience of a child with a mentally disabled sibling, but it also doesn't even attempt to show any positive or warm experiences.  I kept waiting for a moment where Beth would acknowledge Steven as something other than a nuisance.  The best Beth ever manages, as seen in an earlier page, is "I guess I love Steven."  Kids reading this book are probably left with the same sentiment that Beth expressed earlier on -- better their family than mine.

In short, this book is just ret... ret... 

Retired.  As it should be.