Panels from Art Spiegelman's graphic novel 'Maus,' depicting the violence and political terror of Nazi Germany.

Spiegelman has been speaking out ever since the McMinn County, Tennessee school board voted unanimously last year to ban 'Maus,' his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, citing violence, profanity, and (because of the below, right image) nudity. 'I mean, talk about Orwellian, you know? Calling this organization Moms for Liberty, when it's actually for suppression, is about as basic as you could find in '1984,' which I think is listed as a young adult novel still, and probably has been banned in lots of places.' 'Stop it!' said cartoonist Art Spiegelman.

Books that don't have incest, pedophilia, rape.' Let's just put the bar really, really low. Justice added, 'Books that don't have pornography in them, let's start there. 'That's a generalization,' said Teichner. 'Books that educate children,' Descovich replied. Teichner asked, 'What kinds of books do you want in schools and libraries?' Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich, co-founders of Moms for Liberty, which has called for pulling books from school bookshelves.ĭescovich said, 'In 2022, our chapters endorsed in over 500 school board races across the country, and they won 275 seats.' 'We want people who are serving in elected office that respect the role of the parent in a child's life,' said Justice. The two described themselves as 'joyful warriors.' Their aim: to play hardball, with a smile. 'But it's not intended to titillate it's intended to provide a window into one person's experience, not knowing their gender identity and needing to explore that.'

'It is a graphic novel, so certainly it's more in-your-face,' said Caldwell-Stone. Race, controversial aspects of history, vulgarity and violence may be red flags found in a number of books already challenged or banned, but sex and gender are now overwhelmingly the subject matter being attacked, with such books as Juno Dawson's 'This Book Is Gay' and Jonathan Evison's 'Lawn Boy' targeted – ammunition for Florida's Republican Governor Ron Desantis' war on 'woke,' which he described in a speech on March 8: 'Parents, in their sending kids to school, shouldn't have to worry about this garbage being in the schools.'īooks like Maia Kobabe's 'Gender Queer,' an intensely polarizing exploration of gender identity, are at the center of the book battles. On Monday, the American Library Association will announce the Most Challenged Books of 2022.

The Gender Games by Juno Dawson