It’s a society that sees no war, poverty or or pain, but also no emotion, joy or love. Lowry’s social critique on the dangers of conformity is illustrated in an imagined futuristic society, wherein citizens are stripped of any free will: everything from their partners to jobs to children are chosen for them. Much like the banning of “1984,” the censoring of “ The Giver” is particularly ironic given its subject matter. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck $13.00 $9.38 Slauterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Now, of course, it’s recognized as a Great American Novel.
The sweeping Great Depression-set novel was publicly banned and burned by citizens who denounced it as communist propaganda. But for all the controversy that “Of Mice and Men” caused, it might be seen, in retrospect, as preparation for the national phenomenon “The Grapes of Wrath” caused years later.
George and Lennie’s story, based on Steinbeck’s own experience working alongside migrant farmworkers in the 1910s, has been recreated in operas, Broadway plays and musicals, in addition to a 1939 film adaptation that earned four Oscar nominations. Although it’s been the face of controversy in the years since, it earned Steinbeck some of the greatest praise of his career upon its initial publication. Steinbeck’s classic novella is on the ALA’s list of the Most Challenged Books of the 21st Century, targeted for its vulgarity and for what some consider to be racist language. Books such as Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” have famously topped the ALA’s lists of most challenged books throughout the years, with more recent examples including anti-racist books such as Angie Thomas’s “The Hate U Give” and Ibram X.
But many have criticized its removal as just another case in a trend of schools targeting books that teach the history of oppression.
In the case of “Maus” - which details Spiegelman’s father’s experience of the Holocaust - it was “inappropriate language and nudity” that caused a Tennessee school board to remove the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel from its eighth grade curriculum. A group of adults, whether it be parents or teachers, finds a book’s content to be so offensive that they call for it to be pulled from shelves, taken off syllabi or even banned entirely from schools. If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission.Ī Tennessee school board’s recent ban on Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” is the conclusion to a story we’ve already seen.
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