(RNS) — A Tennessee school board voted unanimously to remove a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust from its curriculum earlier this month over concerns about offensive words.
The 10-member board of education in McMinn County, about 60 miles south of Knoxville, voted Jan. 10 to remove the book “Maus,” by Art Spiegelman. The book in graphic form depicts Nazis as cats and Jews as mice. It received a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992.
School board members raised concerns over a handful of vulgar words, such as “goddamn,” deemed inappropriate for the eighth grade, as well as a depiction of the author’s mother naked, rendered as a mouse.
The book was an “anchor text” for McMinn County’s eighth-grade English language arts instruction. News of the decision was first reported by the alternative publication The Tennessee Holler.
Spiegelman, who wrote and illustrated the book based on his parents’ experience in Nazi-occupied Poland and later at Auschwitz, told CNBC he was baffled by the decision.
“I’ve met so many young people who … have learned things from my book,” he said, calling the decision “Orwellian.”
The most recent school board vote came ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day (Jan. 27), marking the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
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