John Steinbeck's classic 1937 novella "Of Mice and Men" won't be banned from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, classrooms after all. The city's school board voted Monday to keep the book as part of the ninth-grade school curriculum, disappointing community members who wanted it restricted to "voluntary, small-group discussion," reports the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash. The vote to preserve the book was 4 to 1. School board trustee Tom Hearn praised the decision, saying: "We need to trust the judgment of our English teachers to use this book wisely, as we have since 2002." The book was challenged last month by community members, including Mary Jo Finney, who said the novella "is neither a quality story nor a page turner." She and others objected to profanity in the book, including "bastard" and "God damn," and found the novella, set in California during the Great Depression, too "negative" and "dark"/Los Angeles Times. More here.

Question: "Of Mice and Men" is part of the 9th-grade required reading list. But that doesn't mean that it is read every year. I suppose there are a lot of classics on that list. Do you think teachers might trot it out for reading and discussion next school year, after all the hubbub that has occurred?