I read the same book at 15 and at 34. The version I got in high school was missing 40 pages, and the missing pages were the whole point.

Amy Foster · 2026-09-17T01:45:05.455757+00:00

Back in 2006 my English teacher in Cincinnati handed out copies of a novel that had been pulled from another school in our district, and I didn't think anything of it until I reread the same book last month. Turns out the edition we got was a cleaned up classroom version, and about 40 pages were cut out, mostly the parts where the main character pushes back on the adults around him. The full version reads like a totally different story because the stuff they cut was the reason the book got challenged in the first place. I get why a school would want a tamer version, but handing kids a gutted book and calling it the same title feels like a lie. My old copy is still on my parents shelf and I keep flipping between the two to spot what got yanked. Has anyone else compared a school edition to the real one and been shocked by what got pulled? Just me?

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I read the same book at 15 and at 34. The version I got in high school was missing 40 pages, and the missing pages were the whole point. | Censored Culture Chat - Discusd