Maus is a graphic novel that explains well what the author, Art Spiegelman’s father, experienced during the holocaust as a jewish man. The book was put in school libraries where students were able to be taught a lesson about the Holocaust through the eyes of Vladek, a jewish mouse, against the German cats, alongside Polish pigs. According to the school board in Tennessee, the novel was not suitable for children, therefore they banned the book from certain schools due to offensive language, disturbing imagery and nudity. But was their reasoning truly valid? I believe that school board should not have banned Maus, seeing how it is a novel about the truth and experiences of a Jewish person in the Holocaust according to the author, as well as, …show more content…
And with the current debate on why the school board is banning the book and what’s right for the students, it is honestly more problematic to ban the book than to use the novel as a teaching tool. If they want to teach students about the Holocaust, why teach it any way other than truthfully? Students are already very unaware about multiple tragedies that have occured in their own country. The Every Child Matters movement had a huge spike in popularity last year after multiple bodies of Indigenous children were found and most people were just finding out about residential schools and how poorly it impacted Indigenous people and their future generations to come. So, is the Holocaust the next mark in history that is soon to be forgotten just because America wants to look good and supposedly wants to “protect their children”? Even if they want to teach the youth about the Holocaust, they want it in a fuzzier and gentler way so that America seems as though they were innocent and were right about what had happened. Many teachers believe that the Tennessee school board's goal is to whitewash history. That the school board’s are in fact, “Opposed to any effort to coerce belief, suppress opinion or punish those whose expression does not conform to what is deemed orthodox in history, politics or beliefs.” It seems to be an unfettered swapping of ideas that are indispensable to keep a free democratic society. History is no longer dates that must be memorized, rather, it is events that lead to the understanding of the present day and it helps to take repercussions for the future. While “Maus” is not a teaching tool and it’s goal was not made to be so, it is a personal element that compels an authentic story. Consequently, why would the novel be banned from school