one of its most controversial. The book has been banned in schools and libraries,
due to racial and sexual themes and language.
Read the article here for further information:
www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/to-kill-a-mockingbird-remains-among-top-banned-classical-novels/
The Hanover School Board banned "To Kill a Mockingbird" after
a board member called the book "immoral literature." In 1966 Harper Lee addressed
such an issue with a letter to the editor regarding the Hanover School Board:
Monroeville, Alabama
January, 1966
Editor, The News Leader:
Recently I have received echoes down this way of the Hanover Country School Board's
acitivities, and what I've heard makes me wonder if any of its members can read.
Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that "To Kill a Mockingbird" spells out in words
of seldom more than two syllables a code of conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage
of all Southerners. To hear that the novel is "immoral" has made me count the years
between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink.
I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism. therefore I enclose a
small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that I hope will be used to enroll the Hanover
Country School Board in any first grade of its choice.
Harper Lee
Note: A month after the vote to ban To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hanover School Board said they
had not attempted to ban any specific book.
Come discuss a banned book with us on May 4th!