The student newspaper and broadcast of Cedar Park High School

The Wolfpack

The student newspaper and broadcast of Cedar Park High School

The Wolfpack

The student newspaper and broadcast of Cedar Park High School

The Wolfpack

Pictured above is a RealCare baby that is used for the baby care project. Students in the Human Growth and Development class had to take home these babies for a weekend and learn how to care for a baby’s needs. “I liked having a constant companion with me,” Lehman said. “I was never alone for more than two seconds because it was really loud and needed constant attention.” 
Photo by Julia Seiden
Robot Babies On the Loose
Julia Seiden, Reporter • December 8, 2023

Her dark room...

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Tom Blyth’s portrayal of Coriolanus Snow in “The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” book-to-movie adaptation has become a staple on social media. The TikTok hashtag “#coriolanussnow” has over one billion views with almost all of the featured videos being a fan-made edit of the actor.
Snow Lands on Top
Alyssa Fox, Reporter • December 6, 2023

Scrolling through...

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A list of 12 Christmas movies you should watch this holiday season!
The 12 Movies of Christmas
Mia Morneault, Reporter • December 6, 2023

It’s the most...

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Crossing the finish line, senior Isabel Conde De Frankenberg secures first place at the Cedar Park invitational on Sept.9. This was Conde De Frankenberg’s first race of the season and she has won this race every year since she was a freshman. “Winning felt good because it’s good to represent your school,” Conde De Frankenberg said. “Being able to run on your own campus is really exciting and I had fun.”
From Start to Finish Line
Mai Cachila, Reporter • December 4, 2023

In the rhythmic...

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AT&T stadium in Arlington is the next big hurdle the Longhorns need to leap over in order to keep their College Football Playoff hopes alive.
Is Texas Back?
Jonathan Levinsky, Reporter • December 1, 2023

“Longhorn Nation,...

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Taking a selfie with some of their castmates, including senior Aidan Cox, who plays Buddy the Elf, junior Brooke Ferguson shows off a sign presenting the arrival of “Elf. This year’s musical, “Elf” runs Dec. 1-3 in the CPHS PAC. “[Learning a new script is] always kind of a challenge,” Ferguson said. “You get a new cast and you get your own part. I’ve never worked closely with these people before. It’s a different environment and doing character work with someone new, trying to partner work and scene work is interesting. The script is good and it has a lot of jokes, it’ll be a lot of laughs.” Photo by Brooke Ferguson
Elf on the Stage
Jane Yermakov, Reporter • December 1, 2023

A mix of unprecedented...

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Re-Writing an American Classic

Mark Twain’s masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an enduring American classic and among required reading lists in academic literary canon all across the country. However, a publication company called NewSouth Books has chosen to release a new edition of the novel, removing racially derogatory words toward African Americans and replacing them with the word “slave.” The word “Injun” will also be removed from the book.

NewSouth Books has defended its decision for such word removals by claiming that since it is now the 21st century, language has changed and some censorship is necessary for a steadily evolving world and some will argue that language is indeed unnecessary if it promotes racially backward points of view. However, as with other various instances of censorship, the act of removing certain words is blasphemous to some who believe that it distorts the author’s true intents and misconstrues the message.

“Race matters in these books,” Alan Gribben, Mark Twain scholar, stated in an interview. “It’s a matter of how you express it in the 21st century.”

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not a racially backward novel, however. It is a product of pure expression and attitude woven with language of the time. Twain was a southern man but certainly not an imbecile prone to destructive thought. Much like Twain’s prequel to Huck Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, he uses colloquial language and acceptable terms of an era of white supremacy throughout a war-fevered south. The book does not exaggerate the use of certain words, nor does it make excuses for them, rather it presents them as part of an honest fabric of language from the time period. They are a true, though now unsightly, mark on American history, culture and speech.

A major concern coming from this is the decision for teachers. Should they or should they not have students read a censored version of the book? Will it hinder the learning experience by obscuring Mark Twain’s message? Or will it be very suitable for this generation of teenagers who often take matters of race lightly?

As pure as NewSouth Book’s intentions are, controversy will always ensue when the original of an American classic is being tampered with. If Mark Twain were still alive, it is almost certain that he would be against the editing of his novel for the sake of his readers delicate sensibilities. His book was meant to shock, offering realistic and honest portrayals of Southern life, including the distasteful state of slavery. Twain was an introspective man and gifted satirist whose reasons for writing were to entertain, convince and perhaps ruffle his readers a bit. Just because the man has long passed does not mean that we have the right to go swapping around words just to make it a teeny bit more acceptable for immature readers.

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The student newspaper and broadcast of Cedar Park High School
Re-Writing an American Classic