The Curious Incident of Censorship

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A Florida school has removed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time from its reading list, reports the Guardian. It’s not the first time the book has been deemed controversial, and author Mark Haddon had this to say about this new complaint:

The assumption is that I should be morally affronted when this happens – and it has happened surprisingly often – but the truth is that it always generates a really interesting debate among school kids and librarians and parents, not just about Curious, but about literature and freedom and language, and this is an undeniably good thing,” said Haddon. “I have no way of proving it, but my suspicion is that more people read the book as a result and read it with more attention and interest than they might have done.


Ian MacAllen is the author of Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American (Rowman & Littlefield, April 2022). His writing has appeared in Chicago Review of Books, Southern Review of Books, The Offing, 45th Parallel Magazine, Little Fiction, Vol 1. Brooklyn, and elsewhere. He tweets @IanMacAllen and is online at IanMacAllen.com. More from this author →