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Comment by forgotmyinfo | Hacker News Reader

Oh, come on now. You don't have to enjoy Toni Morrison, but to discount her absolute success because she isn't your preference is more than a little ridiculous.

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Every school library in the US has 120 copies of this book. I'm just wondering how many non-school / library buyers there were. If her success is government-mandated, it can easily be discounted.

> Every school library in the US has 120 copies of this book.

This seems improbable.

It seems even more unlikely when The Bluest Eye has been banned so often:

    The ALA placed it on the Top Ten Most Challenged Books Lists for 2006, 2014, 2013, 2020, and 2022.

    Ultimately, it became the 34th-most banned book in the United States 1990–1999, the 15th-most banned book 2000–2009, and the 10th-most banned book 2010–2019.

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bluest_Eye

Can you back up this assertion at all?

I admit some confusion of the idea that Toni Morrison is successful only because she was taught in schools. Schools aren’t known to push literature in classrooms published within that year on a nationwide scale (outside of specifically librarian association recommendations or something like this, a scholastic books thing). From a brief Wikipedia read, The Bluest Eye was published with Toni Morrison was nearly 40 and didn’t sell well, so it makes no sense why that’s the one taught in schools.

ah here we go, you don't like it because it's a culture war thing

Yeah getting statue avi vibes from them.

I always thought people borrowing books meant fewer sales, not more. Stephen King will be happy to hear it

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