Invisible Man Book Banned From Randolph County, N.C.: 'Too Much For Teenagers' Parent Complaint Says

Invisible Man book banned from Randolph County, N.C. high school libraries because lack of "literary value" that one parent said as she called a school to complain about it.

The Invisible Man book is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells published in 1897. Originally serialized in Pearson's Weekly in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. Well over 100 years later, it is banned from Randolph County.

According to the Tribune, a parent of an eleventh grader wrote the school district expressing her disapproval of the book's availability to students stating that eventually got the Invisible Man book banned.

"The narrator writes in the first person, emphasizing his individual experiences and his feelings about the events portrayed in his life. This novel is not so innocent; instead, this book is filthier, too much for teenagers. 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."

In 1995, writing for the New York Times, Roger Rosenblatt praised the novel as a masterpiece.

"Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man," which won the National Book Award in 1953, was instantly recognized as a masterpiece, a novel that captured the grim realities of racial discrimination as no book had, " Rosenblatt wrote. "Its reputation grew as Ellison retreated into a mythic literary silence that made his one achievement definitive."

Including the book in its list of 100 Best English Language Novels since 1923, Time literary critic Lev Grossman also expressed great admiration for Ellison's work, reported by the Huffington Post.

"Evenhandedly exposing the hypocrisies and stereotypes of all comers, Invisible Man is far more than a race novel, or even a bildungsroman. It's the quintessential American picaresque of the 20th century."