On January 10, 2022, the McMinn County School Board banned Tennesse Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel, mouse, from his school library. The vote was not close – all 10 members of the school board voted to get the book out of school. The author, Art Spiegelman, tell CNBC he was “stunned” by the decision. And, everywhere, parents should be just as confused.
If you missed this 1991 book, mouse tells the story of Jews who fled the Holocaust during World War II. Artist and author Art Spiegelman portrayed the Jews in the story creatively as mice and some of the Nazis as cats. Versions of mouse was arranged in 1981 before the whole story was collected in book form in 1991. Due to the hyperbolic technique of portraying characters as animals, the power of mouse is clear from one glance: For teens and teens, this Holocaust memoir is potentially more powerful than a simple documentary. By elevating the portrayal of people to anthropomorphized caricatures, the evil of the Nazis is unforgettable.
This is not to say you should read mouse to your toddler. The audience for this book is definitely 10 and above. But, most likely, this is true of much of the Holocaust material. However, the reason why the McMinn County School Board banned mouse has nothing to do with whether older children should read it or not. Instead, they fixed themselves on something truly bizarre.
According to reports, the reason why this school board banned mouse – of a GRADE EIGHT curriculum – was due to his depiction of nudity. The exact complaint was: “concern about swearing and an image of female nudity in its depiction of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust.”
The nudity in question was focused on a particular Holocaust survivor, and in fact was based on Spiegelman’s own mother. What seems so bizarre is that this school board was focused on the depiction of nudity, crude language and violence, rather than the context in which these images were displayed. According to CNBC, one councilor, Tony Allman, said: “It shows people are hanging, it shows they are killing children, why is the education system promoting this kind of thing, it is not wise or healthy.”
The idea that a book over the Holocaust is somehow promotion the action of the Holocaust by depicting the events is not only a terrible approach, but terrible that someone in education does not understand this distinction. According to reports, some educators, including an assistant principal named Julie Goodin, reacted cleverly by saying, “I can talk about history, I was a history teacher and there is nothing beautiful about the Holocaust and for me it’s a wonderful way to portray a horrible time in history. ”
Many journalists and experts have suggested that the school board’s actions to ban the book probably stem from anti-Semitism, but even if that is not the case, the reasons given for the ban are frightening enough. People with the power to shape the education of children looked at content without context and made a decision rooted in anti-intellectualism and ignorance. Education is not about protecting children from painful truths. It’s about helping to contextualize those truths. mouse is one of the best examples of how horrific moments from history can be sublimated into profound, life-changing art. And decision-makers who feel differently are moving toward the horrific book burning of the Nazis themselves.
You can buy mouse is at all kinds of bookstores, also here.
