Is ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ Too Scary for the MCS School Board?

The Shirley Jackson classic that can’t be taught at MHS.

In the spirit of Halloween, we have a scary story for you. The Haunting of Hill House, the 1959 Shirley Jackson gothic horror novel, has been deemed too… something (we’re not sure what) for Marietta High School students to read in class, and it has been removed from classroom curriculum.

Does it have sexually explicit content?

The school board seems to be obsessed with this sort of thing, but no, The Haunting of Hill House does not have any sexually explicit content. The examples listed under “sex” on the vetting document are kind of weird (see below), and the last one doesn’t have anything to do with sex at all.

Does it have profanity?

The word “damn” is used five–yes, five–times, and the word “bloody,” i.e. “this bloody house…” is used once. We think high school students are mature enough to handle this.

Does it have violence?

It’s a book about a haunted house. Things go bump in the night. There is some discussion of violence and a violent ending. Remember, The Hunger Games is on the Approved 7th Grade reading list, so we use The Hunger Games as our standard for how violent a book is. The Haunting of Hill House is nowhere near as violent as The Hunger Games, so violence should not be the issue.

Does it have controversial issues?

Having recently read the book ourselves, we would say no. It’s a fun, creepy, slightly scary gothic novel by a writer who is one of the best in the genre. However, Marietta City Schools has a different take. They have deemed The Haunting of Hill House controversial because…it’s about a haunted house. Yeah, we know.

This one is really a head scratcher, and we’ve been baffled by its banning from the classrooms since we first saw it on the list. The book is considered an excellent example of the genre, and Shirley Jackson, of “The Lottery” fame, perfected the form. There is no reason why this book should not be in MHS classrooms.

Here are screenshots of the vetting document used to evaluate this book:

If you are as baffled as we are by the removal of The Haunting of Hill House from MCS classrooms, drop your school board member a note or give them a call and ask if they support the removal of this book. Contact and Ward information can be found for each member here.