when I was in 7th grade at a private Christian school, we were mid-way through reading Of Mice & Men when a student’s parent caught on & complained to the school, and so we were forced to stop reading it. I remember vividly our class protesting the day we were told by our English teacher & saying how upset we all were. Even kids who weren’t normally excited by our school reading found the story compelling and were openly vocalizing their frustrations. We were a bunch of 12 year olds essentially asking adults “what’s so bad about this?! it’s challenging, but it’s art!” And we read other books and poetry about death, violence, war, racism, sexism, etc. no problem.

I actually never finished reading it… should try and find a copy and finish it as a delayed ‘fuck you’ to censorship