An Alaska school board has banned five literary classics from high school classes—including The Great Gatsby, Invisible Man, and Catch-22. Also deemed too “controversial” were The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. Matanuska-Susitna school board member Jeff Taylor said the books, which are part of English curricula across the nation, are being blacklisted from schools in Wasilla and Palmer because they contain sexual references, including rape and incest. “Is there a reason that we include books that we even label as controversial in our curriculum?” he told the Anchorage Daily News. “I would prefer these were gone.” A school board member who voted against the ban told the newspaper the move reminded him of the movie “Footloose,” about a town where dancing is banned.
