One member viewed the novel as one that was "absolutely immoral in its tone" and that "it seems to contain but very little humor." Other committee members thought of the novel as one that included "ignorant dialect, bad grammar and inelegant expressions." ("Huckleberry" 1.) Also, the book was viewed as "rough, course and inelegant" and thought to be "more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable people." Since the library committee was well educated, they interpreted the novel as an insult to their social status. However, this library was not the only one to believe The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was offensive. Many other libraries banned the novel for the same reasons that the Concord library banned it, and because they perceived it as a bad role model to children.
In more recent years, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered controversial because of the racism it contained (Zwick 1). In a court case, a student's mother, Kathy Monteiro, an African American, unsuccessfully attempted to sue her daughter's high school, McClintock High School, because The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a required reading in her child's English class. Monteiro reported that it "contains repeated use of the profane, insulting, and racially derogatory term 'nigger.' " She argued that there were no books that referred to Caucasians in this awful language that were part of the curriculum. Monteiro also believed that her daughter, and others in the same situation "suffered psychological injuries and lost educational opportunities" because of the content of the novel (U.S. 1). The Pennsylvania branch of the NAACP also agreed with Monteiro on the subject that the novel was "psychologically damaging" in an attempt to ban the novel from reading lists . Because of her race, Kathy Monteiro, along with others, interpreted the novel as damaging (Zwick 1).
Despite the various negative accounts of people's thoughts about this novel, there were also numerous positive reactions to the publishing of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
