In a week that also saw the observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the national media spotlight fell on the McMinn County, Tennessee, school board for its decision to remove from the eighth-grade curriculum Art Spiegelman’s Maus, a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust.

According to the New York Times, “members of the board said the book, which portrays Jews as mice and Nazis as cats in recounting the author’s parents’ experience during the Holocaust, contained inappropriate curse words and a depiction of a naked character.”

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“Maus” Out at Tennessee Middle School

“The fleeting, nude panel in this tragic Holocaust story is a small image that depicts the author’s mother found in a bathtub after she’s cut her wrists,” explains Andrew AlbanesePublishers Weekly senior writer.

“The graphic novel format is a source of the work’s power—and one of the reasons why Maus is such an important work for young people – and in many cases, their first real engagement with Holocaust history,” he tells CCC.

Author: Christopher Kenneally

Christopher Kenneally hosts CCC's Velocity of Content podcast series, which debuted in 2006 and is the longest continuously running podcast covering the publishing industry. As CCC's Senior Director, Marketing, he is responsible for organizing and hosting programs that address the business needs of all stakeholders in publishing and research. His reporting has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, The Independent (London), WBUR-FM, NPR, and WGBH-TV.
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