This illustration photo taken in Los Angeles, California on January 27, 2022 shows a person holding the graphic novel “Maus” by Art Spiegelman.
Maro Siranosian | AFP | Getty Images
“Maus,” the decades-old graphic novel about the effects of the Holocaust on a family, became an Amazon bestseller in recent days as part of a backlash to news that it was banned by a Tennessee school board in from its eighth-grade curriculum.
The McMinn County school board says it took that step. Jan. 10 because of a handful of curse words and other aspects of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book that it found upsetting, including “its depiction of violence and suicide.” The board’s decision was unanimous.
The book, which was created by Art Spiegelman, had been part of a curriculum focusing on the Holocaust, which both of his parents lived through in concentration camps.
“The Complete Maus” on Friday held the No. 1 spot among Amazon’s bestsellers in the comics and graphic novels category, the No. 4 spot for literature and No. 5 for biography.
“Maus I” and “Maus II” — earlier published books that are combined in “The Complete Maus” — also shot up to other top spots on Amazon bestseller lists since Wednesday afternoon, when news of the ban first broke.
In addition to leading to a flood of demand for the book on Amazon, the McMinn board’s ban spurred other people to make the book more accessible to readers.
One of them, Professor Scott Denham at Davidson College in North Carolina, is offering McMinn County students in the eighth grade and high school an online class on “Maus.“
“I have taught Spiegelman’s books many times in my courses on the Holocaust over many years,” Denham says on his website.
Richard Davis, the owner of the Nirvana Comics bookstore in Knoxville, Tenn., is offering loans of “The Complete Maus” to any student.
Davis, whose store is located within 15 miles of McMinn County, also has set up a GoFundMe campaign to buy more “Maus” copies to be loaned and possibly ultimately donated to students. That effort easily topped its original $10,000 target by Friday afternoon.
“We’re getting requests from parents all over the country, even Europe, asking for copies,” said Davis.
He believes the surprisingly strong response reflects the view that “That’s not what we do in America: ‘We don’t ban books.'”
“It triggered a very American response,” he said.
One donor on the page wrote: “Banned books are the without fail among the most important, and ‘Maus,’ especially right now, is very, very important.”
Cartoonist Art Spiegelman attends the French Institute Alliance Francaise’s “After Charlie: What’s Next for Art, Satire and Censorship at Florence Gould Hall on February 19, 2015 in New York City.
Mark Sagliocco | Getty Images
The book’s author told CNBC in an email: “I’m heartened by reader responses, and the local responses you mentioned.”
“The schoolboard could’ve checked with their book-banning predecessor, [Russia President]…
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