A Pulitzer prize-winning book renowned for teaching children about the Holocaust in an age-appropriate way is flying off store shelves, after being banned by a US school district over concerns of nudity and bad language.
The book, Maus tells the story of author Art Spiegelman's parents and their escape from Nazi concentration camps.
"I've moved past total bafflement," he told CNN in an interview.
"Trying to be tolerant, of people who - may not be Nazis?"
The book has a backorder of several weeks, and some copies are selling for four times the recommended retail price after the ban by the McMinn County school board in the state of Tennessee.
Other children of survivors are equally baffled about the ban - because the characters are mice.
Andrea Bolender, chair of the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Centre in New York, says she believes the claims are a cover for a possible rise in antisemitism.
"Is it offensive because it describes a part of history you're not proud of? Does it defend a part of history you're denying?" she said.
"What is the offense? Because nude mice are not the offensive part of this."
The McMinn school county board has declined to comment any further after its unanimous vote to remove the book from its classrooms.
"I read it to my kids, my kids all have it in their libraries... What are you telling your children about life if you start banning these books?" said Ms Bolender.
"Whatever you read in that book, is nothing compared to what these people saw."
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