A Thousand Acres
Artist: Jane Smiley
Year: 2012
Date of Action: November 28, 2012
Region: North America
Location: Katy, Texas
Subject: Explicit Sexuality, Sexual/Gender Orientation
Medium: Literature
Confronting Bodies: Parents
Description of Artwork: A Thousand Acres is a 1991 novel by American author Jane Smiley. The novel is a contemporary retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear and is set on a thousand acre (four hundred hectares) farm in Iowa that is owned by a family of a father and his three daughters. It is told through the point of view of the oldest daughter, Ginny.
The Incident: Due to scenes involving "dark themes" such as sexual abuse, parents in the Katy school system advocated for the removal of "A Thousand Acres" from the system's AP English curriculum.
Results of Incident: "A Thousand Acres" was removed from the Katy, Texas AP English reading list. The removal has yet to be retracted.
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