Author Elana K. Arnold interacts with children at an event. Arnold is one of three Jewish writers on PEN America’s list of most-banned authors. Courtesy of Elana K. Arnold

By Beth Harpaz September 26, 2023

Three Jewish writers of young-adult fiction are among the 10 most-banned authors on a new list of every book banned in the U.S. 

The list also includes Maus and a graphic adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary, along with stories from the Old Testament and nonfiction books about the Holocaust.

“People often say ‘Good for you!’ when they hear one (or several) of my books have been banned,” said Elana K. Arnold, who is one of the Jewish writers on the most-banned list, along with Sarah J. Maas and Jesse Andrews. “I always reply: No. Not good for me. Shame on them, those fear mongers, those haters of liberty, those who seek to ban books.”

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The list was compiled by PEN America, a nonprofit organization advocating for free expression, for a report called Banned in the USA: The Mounting Pressure to Censor. The report documented 3,362 instances of book bans in U.S. public school classrooms and libraries in the 2022-23 school year, an increase of 33% from the previous year.

The latest bans took 1,557 titles off the shelves. Many of the targeted books feature content related to race or racism, LGBTQ+ themes or characters, physical abuse, health, grief or death. Work by the three Jewish writers on the top-10 list is not explicitly Jewish in theme or content, but Arnold described her next book, The Blood Years, due out in October, as her “most overtly Jewish book,” historical fiction inspired by her grandmother’s teenage years in Romania.

Anne Frank and ‘Maus’

While the classic text edition of Anne Frank’s diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, does not appear on the list, Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation, does. That adaptation, by David Polonsky and Ari Folman, has been criticized for panels that show Anne walking in a park looking at nude statues and suggesting to a friend that they look at each other’s breasts.

NBC News reporter Ben Collins posted a short video about the Anne Frank controversy called “How Anne Frank’s diary became porn in Texas.” Collins said the graphic adaptation was banned at a Texas school because it described “a 13-year-old girl’s desire to kiss someone” and used the word “penis.” Collins’ video has been viewed 1 million times.

Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel about his parents’ experiences during the Holocaust, The Complete Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, has been repeatedly targeted in recent years for including an image of a naked woman and using the phrase “God damn.”

A number of books on the list tell stories from both the Old and New Testaments, including books about Moses, Noah, Jonah, Job, Daniel, Miriam, Joseph, Jesus, Mary, Easter, Exodus and Christmas. The bases for those bans were unclear. 

The banned nonfiction books included Life in a Nazi Concentration Camp by Don Nardo and Hitler’s Final Solution by John Allen. 

Who’s banning books?

The report attributed the bans to “coordinated campaigns by a vocal minority of groups and individual actors and, increasingly, as a result of pressure from state legislation.” PEN cited three national advocacy groups as among the most active in seeking book bans: Moms for Liberty, Citizens Defending Freedom and Parents’ Rights in Education.

More than 40% of all book bans occurred in school districts in Florida, followed by Texas, Missouri, Utah and Pennsylvania. The Daily Beast reported that one individual, Bruce Friedman, is responsible for hundreds of book challenges in Clay County, Florida, including a complaint about a children’s book featuring Arthur the Aardvark. (The school ultimately rejected his concerns about Arthur.) The Jerusalem Post identified Friedman as Jewish.

Friedman, a former New Yorker, declined an interview request from the Forward in a cellphone text.

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