An Alabama lawmaker wants to ban Toni Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye, from high school reading lists.
State Sen. Bill Holtzclaw, a Republican, says he finds the content and language of the novel about a black girl who wishes for blue eyes so she can feel beautiful and admired, "objectionable," according to a report in theatlanticwire.com.
The book — which mentions incest and child molestation — is on the 11th grade reading list for Common Core, the set of standards adapted by more than 40 states. Holtzclaw told the Alabama Media Group he would also support pulling the book from high school libraries.
“The book is just completely objectionable, from language to the content,” Holtzclaw said.
The book has been on someone’s book ban list ever since Morrison wrote it in 1970. Holtclaw’s interest in banning it now stems from criticism he got from fellow GOPers when he didn’t back an appeal of Common Core, according to the report.
Morrison, winner of both a Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize in literature, has authored 10 novels and is professor emerita at Princeton.
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