'Invisible Man' Just Got Banned in N.C.

On the cusp of next week's Banned Books Week — you know, the one in which we celebrate cast-off books by reading 'em — we already told you about a few schools that were taking the week a little too literally, yanking potentially beneficial children's titles from circulation.

Luckily, there's more news to heap on that pile. The Asheboro Courier-Tribune reports that Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man has been banned from a school libraries in a Randolph County, N.C. high school.

Yes, that's the same Invisible Man that won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1953, and then in 2010 made TIME' s list of the All-TIME 100 Novels for being "the quintessential American picaresque of the 20th century."

The Board's action was prompted due to a 12-page statement from a parent, who said that the book,"is not so innocent; instead, this book is filthier, too much for teenagers." Kimiyutta Parson wrote:

“You must respect all religions and point of views when it comes to the parents and what they feel is age appropriate for their young children to read, without their knowledge. This book is freely in your library for them to read.”

Board of Education member Gary Mason said of the title, “I didn’t find any literary value.”

So in a 5-2 vote on Monday night, which defeated a motion to keep Invisible Man on the approved reading list, there go all the copies of Invisible Man in the Randleman High School library... and a lot of our faith in good judgement with it.

Image: Wikimedia Commons