Book on Holocaust was banned in Tennessee school district. Now ‘Maus’ is a top seller
The McMinn County Board of Education in Tennessee voted 10-0 this month to ban “Maus,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning winning graphic novel on the Holocaust, due to language and nudity, but not everyone is on the same page.
Days after the news erupted nationally, so did sales of the book. The board voted to ban the book from the curriculum on Jan. 10. By the end of January, “Maus” rose to the #2 best-selling book on Amazon and #1 in Jewish Holocaust History, U.S. Biographies and Literary Graphic Novels.
According to the Associated Press, neither the original book “Maus” or its full version “The Complete Maus” were in the top 1,000 sold books on Amazon prior to theMcMinn decision. ”Maus” has a rating of five stars on Amazon.
Along with the purchases, buyers on Amazon left reviews in response to the decision made by the school board.
“An amazing graphic novel. So powerful and an important teaching tool for children so they can learn history,” one reviewer wrote. “The fact that school boards have banned this book in backwards states is horrifying.”
“Maus is an absolutely brilliant book about the terrifying evil of fascism in Europe,” another reviewer wrote. “I’ve known the book for many years but I bought a new copy as a small way to stand on the right side of history, and to remind the McMinn County School Board what side they chose. Never forget.”
Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel takes readers through the story of his father’s life during the Holocaust. In the graphic novel, all characters are animals, with Nazis represented as cats and Jews represented as mice. There are several versions of the graphic novel and multiple parts, including “Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History” and “Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began.”
The McMinn County board decided to remove the book from its eighth-grade curriculum on Jan. 10 after a lengthy conversation about curse words, school policy and appropriate reading for students.
“It shows people hanging, it shows them killing kids, why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff? It is not wise or healthy,” school board member Tony Allman said at the meeting, according to school board minutes from Jan. 10.
“I think any time you are teaching something from history, people did hang from trees, people did commit suicide and people were killed, over six million were murdered. I think the author is portraying that because it is a true story about his father that lived through that,” responded instructional supervisor Melasawn Knight. “He is trying to portray that the best he can with the language that he chooses that would relate to that time, maybe to help people who haven’t been in that aspect in time to actually relate to the horrors of it.”
After the board discussed the novel further, the conversation ended with a unanimous vote to ban the book.
McClatchy News reached out to McMinn County school administrators for comment and has not received a response.
The school board released a statement that the book was too adult-oriented for use in McMinn schools and that the board members don’t believe it is an appropriate text for students to study due to the use of profanity, violence and nudity.
“It’s leaving me with my jaw open,” Spiegelman told CNBC. “I’ve met so many young people who have learned things from my book. I also understand that Tennessee is obviously demented. There’s something going on very, very haywire there.”
Supporters of the book have spoken out online, including Neil Gaiman, author of “The Sandman.”
“There’s only one kind of people who would vote to ban ‘Maus,’ whatever they are calling themselves these days,” Gaiman posted on Twitter.
“We do not diminish the value of Maus as an impactful and meaningful piece of literature, nor do we dispute the importance of teaching out children the historical and moral lessons and realities of the Holocaust,” the school board said in a statement. “We have asked our administrators to find other works that accomplish the same educational goals in a more age-appropriate fashion.”
This story was originally published January 31, 2022 at 3:30 PM with the headline "Book on Holocaust was banned in Tennessee school district. Now ‘Maus’ is a top seller."
