Dave Eggers’ Novel Was Banned From South Dakota Schools. In a New Documentary, the Community Fights Back (Exclusive); People, August 10, 204

Carly Tagen-Dye

Carly Tagen-Dye

Carly Tagen-Dye is the Books editorial assistant at PEOPLE, where she writes for both print and digital platforms.

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, People; Dave Eggers’ Novel Was Banned From South Dakota Schools. In a New Documentary, the Community Fights Back (Exclusive)

"Bestselling author Dave Eggers wasn’t expecting to learn that his 2013 dystopian novel, The Circle, was removed from high schools in Rapid City, S.D. What's more, Eggers' book, along with four others, was designated “to be destroyed” by the school board as well.

“It was new to me, although the other authors that were banned have had the books banned again and again,” Eggers tells PEOPLE.

The decision to ban The Circle, as well as The Perks of Being a Wallflowerby Stephen Chbosky, How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue, Fun Homeby Alison Bechdel and Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo, is the subject of the documentary To Be Destroyed, premiering on MSNBC on Aug. 11 as part of Trevor Noah's "The Turning Point" series. Directed by Arthur Bradford, the film follows Eggers during his travels to Rapid City, where he met with the teachers and students on the frontlines of the book banning fight."

New California law bars schoolbook bans based on racial and LGBTQ topics; NPR, September 26, 2023

Jonathan Franklin , NPR; New California law bars schoolbook bans based on racial and LGBTQ topics

"California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law Monday prohibiting school boards across the state from banning books, instructional materials or curricula categorized as inclusive or diverse.

Under the new law, which went into effect immediately after its signing, the state can fine schools that would block textbooks and library books that allow students to learn about diverse communities.

The bill — formally known as AB 1078 — also authorizes Tony Thurmond, state superintendent of public instruction, to purchase instructional materials for school districts, regain costs from the purchases and determine whether to fine school boards if they do not abide by the state's updated instructional standards."

War of words: The fight over banning books; CBS News, Sunday Morning, April 23, 2023

MARTHA TEICHNER, CBS News, Sunday Morning; War of words: The fight over banning books

""Stop it!" said cartoonist Art Spiegelman. "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."

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. 

Spiegelman said, "I think it's possible for an adult to say, 'I don't want my kid reading that book in class.' But to forbid the other kids from reading it or taking it out of the library? That's not liberty; that's suppression and authoritarianism."

Spiegelman says: fight back. "Kick out the damn school boards," he said, "and get school boards in that are more nuanced in what they're doing; getting involved in local politics as necessary to try to protect libraries' funding and schools' needs, instead of making it such a low priority.""

Art Spiegelman sees the new ban of his book ‘Maus’ as a ‘red alert’; The Washington Post, January 28, 2022

 Michael Cavna , The Washington Post; Art Spiegelman sees the new ban of his book ‘Maus’ as a ‘red alert’

"Now, though, given the latest roiling debates over which books can be banned from schools and libraries, the author of the seminal graphic memoir “Maus”appreciates his work’s long cultural tail: “I’m grateful the book has a second life as an anti-fascist tool.”

Spiegelman is speaking shortly after learning that a Tennessee school board voted unanimously this month to ban “Maus,” which in 1992 became the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. The two-volume comic biography chronicles his family’s Holocaust history through a frame-tale of ‘70s conversations between Spiegelman and his estranged father, all told with anthropomorphic imagery: The Jewish characters are rendered as mice, for instance, and the Nazis are cats...

In the current sociopolitical climate, he views the Tennessee vote as no anomaly. “It’s part of a continuum, and just a harbinger of things to come,” Spiegelman says, adding that “the control of people’s thoughts is essential to all of this.”

As such school votes strategically aim to limit “what people can learn, what they can understand and think about,” he says, there is “at least one part of our political spectrum that seems to be very enthusiastic about” banning books.

“This is a red alert. It’s not just: ‘How dare they deny the Holocaust?’ ” he says with a mock gasp. “They’ll deny anything.”.

Spiegelman, 73, knows well the ways and whims of educational decision-makers. He cites how often “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” has been challenged and banned ever since its 1885 publication. And in 1986 — just a few weeks after book one of “Maus” was published — William Faulkner’s 1930 Southern Gothic novel “As I Lay Dying” enjoyed a regional spike in sales when it was banned by a Kentucky school district."