# Maus: A Survivor's Tale

**Author:** Art Spiegelman
**Grade range:** Grades 9–12
**Age range:** 14–18
**First published:** 1986
**Page count:** 296
**Genre:** Graphic Novel / Memoir
**ISBN-13:** `9780394747231`
**ISBN-10:** `0394747232`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/maus
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

A Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel in which Spiegelman recounts his father Vladek's survival of Auschwitz, with Jews drawn as mice and Nazis as cats. Maus is one of the most widely assigned graphic novels in US high schools and a frequent subject of district-level reconsideration challenges over its depiction of Holocaust violence and a single panel of nudity.

## Themes

- Holocaust
- intergenerational trauma
- memory and history
- father-son relationship
- graphic narrative
- survival

## Content notes

- Holocaust violence
- suicide (referenced)
- nudity (one panel)
- antisemitic violence

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 13+

## Where this book is assigned

### AP English Literature & Composition

- **recommended** · 11th grade — [source: AP Lit graphic-novel representative text](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition)

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 9th grade — [source: CCSS ELA grades 9-10 Holocaust unit graphic-novel exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **recommended** · 10th grade — [source: CCSS ELA grades 9-10 Holocaust unit graphic-novel exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **recommended** · 10th grade · Texas — [source: TEKS English II Holocaust literature option](https://tea.texas.gov/)

## Banned / challenged record

Documented removals or formal challenges in at least one school district in 4 states: TN, TX, FL, MO. Source: [PEN America's Index of School Book Bans](https://pen.org/banned-book-list/) 2022-2024.

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