What book are you reading?
It’s called “Maus.”
What? Where did you get that? The school board made it very clear that book was being removed from the library.
Noelle lent it to me. She owns a copy.
You’re not supposed to have that book. It shows people hanging. It shows the Nazis killing kids and there are naked people in the book. Schools should not be promoting that kind of thing.
They’re not promoting it—they’re educating us on what really happened. The Nazis did kill kids. And they made people strip down and they suffocated them in gas chambers and made piles of dead naked bodies.
You shouldn’t be seeing that.
But if it’s true why shouldn’t I know about it?
Because it’s obscene and you’re too young. I don’t know why anyone would want children to read such a book.
I’m not too young. I’m in eighth grade! Noelle said the Holocaust was obscene and any book about it should make that clear.
That book is not appropriate for you. It will give you terrible ideas.
Maus won a Pulitzer Prize. And aren’t we supposed to learn from history? There’s a saying that those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
You shouldn’t be hanging around with Noelle. She’s a bad influence on you.
She’s my friend.
If she has that book, she’s lacking morals. Now give that book to me.
I can’t. It’s Noelle’s and I have to return it to her with her other books.
What other books?
“Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World.” It’s about a middle school student who is gay. And “George,” about a transgender boy.
Dear Lord, those books are immoral and such people are deviants. Why would you want to read those books?
Well, we’ve been talking about things.
What things?
How we feel. There’s no one else we can talk to.
Don’t you dare. You hand those books over right now. I’m going to burn them.
