Anyone care to see a list of banned books? PEN America Index of School Book Bans – 2024-2025 - PEN America
Good old Ezekiel 23:20!
That is kinda funny, thanks. 
See, they list Maus, which was NOT “banned” it was simply replaced in one schools 8th grade reading list- it was still available in the school library.
PEN America defines a school book ban as any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental
officials, that leads to a previously accessible book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished.
See, that is not being banned. being replaced on one grades reading list- is not a ban.
And now, for the rest of the story: Art Spiegelman on Banning ‘Maus’ - PEN America
So, is he refusing the massive increase in sales that occurred due to the “banning”?
The Nazis actually banned books- they burned them and made those books illegal to sell or own. Same with the Soviets and many Dictatorships.
Some school removing a book from the official reading list for one grade- where the book is right there in the school library- is not “banning”. Any kid could read it- but they were no longer required to do so. How is that being banned? Besides Maus- with its depictions of the Polish as pigs- was massively bigoted. The Polish were treated very badly in WW2. Calling someone a “pig” (świnia) in Polish culture and European anti-Semitic idioms is a severe, deeply offensive insult
MAUS does not teach students about the complexities of
the Holocaust but rather oversimplifies such complexities. The reality is that the
students’ level of understanding of these issues is generally rather poor or almost
non-existent. In addition, neither they nor the teachers possess the necessary tools
to properly assess the flaws of this book.
In a nutshell, the case against MAUS is that, despite its veneer of sophistication,
the book is a rather primitive expression of the author’s prejudices in choosing to
portray the Poles as a nation of swine. Furthermore, its portrayal of Poles contains
serious misrepresentations regarding their alleged role in the Holocaust. This is
contemptible, and unacceptable by any standards. The notion that teachers can and
will expose the biases and misrepresentations regarding Poles found in this book is
unlikely in the extreme…> .• Ordinary Poles are portrayed as Nazi sympathizers.
13
• Poles are shown as occupying virtually all positions of brutal Kapos in Nazi
German camps
Note that some 60 Polish were recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations"
https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous
Heavy punishment – sometimes even death – was imposed on every Pole, Ukrainian or Byelorussian caught hiding Jews or aiding them in any way. In contrast, foodstuffs and bottles of Vodka – valuable products in those troubled years – were handed out to anyone revealing a Jew or passing on information that would lead to the exposure of Jewish hiding places. Assistance by Poles to Jews was both organized and individual. Organized help came, in the main, from the “Council to Aid the Jews,” known by its underground name as Zegota.
The Polish were heroes, not Pigs.
And the author refuses to apologize.
Well, depending on how you feel about separation between church and state. Because…
As it turns out, even Gideon Bibles piss people off:
There were riots in Philadelphia not over the presence of the Bible but the particular version to use:
I think a reasonable compromise would be to say that the school is not going to stock bibles in the library (or is going to stock every different kind) because we don’t all agree on which one is the Truth. So if you want to read the Bible at school, bring your own and the school will respect that, just as they respect the Mormon kid over there reading a Book of Mormon or the Muslim kid over there reading from the Holy Quran.
The path of the righteous man? No wait, I think that’s a different one.
Regarding the 1844 riots: Around the same time, the Catholics founded their own private schools because they disagreed with the Bible translation that was used in schools at the time.
The McGuffey Reader is still in print, but it can’t be used in public schools because it contains Bible quotes. Having it, or Bibles, the Quran, etc. in the library? That, I have no problem with.
I live a few blocks from a high school, and I’ve seen the Gideons there, just off campus, after school giving out Bibles. Free speech, folks.
Having a Bible in the school library is fine- as long as it is included for educational, historical, or literary reference . As your ACLU cite shows, handing out Bibles and other religious tracts to each and every student is not.
If you read Asimov’s Guide to the Bible (He was not religious at all), you would see that many literary references originate in the Bible.
Right. Or in a Comparative religion class.
The issue with separation of church and state and things like stocking the Bible or teaching religion isn’t the “teaching religion” or “Bible” part; it’s that in order to adhere to SoCaS a school would have to teach about religion in general, and carry a general selection of religious books. Something that the people pushing for “religion in school” find anathema. They want their religion and only theirs taught in school, and dissenters to be violently persecuted.
So, schools simply avoid the subject altogether, and people interpret that as meaning SoCaS forbidding religion in school at all. So you end up with performative nonsense like believers praying around the flagpole “in defiance” of a rule that doesn’t exist.
Of course they could fall back to the Bowdler’s edition, which omitted anything which could not be read out loud in the family drawing room.
That’s very much like the cycle I described here:
So the attempts to ban the Bible had the effect intended - calling attention to the hypocrisy of book banning. Glad you got it!