OBOC is LAVC's common read program. Each academic year, a new book is selected, which is read throughout courses and across disciplines. The OBOC initiative cultivates opportunities for creativity, scholarship, critical thinking, and academic dialog. It creates a shared intellectual experience for students, faculty, administration and staff.
The OBOC program works to promote reading and equity in our campus community. Books are selected to support students' sense of belonging; increase successful outcomes of underperforming groups; and ensure a campus climate that supports diversity.
Book nominations are accepted year-round.
The LAVC Library has several print copies of Maus available on reserve for 4-day checkout. Visit the Library in person if you're interested in borrowing a copy. A read-aloud version of this graphic novel is also available on YouTube.
The Los Angeles Public library also has many copies of this book available for checkout.
The bestselling first installment of the graphic novel acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker). The only graphic novel to ever win the Pulitzer Prize, this is a “Banned and Challenged Books Everyone Should Read” (Variety).
A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.
Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma.
Check out this read-aloud version of the graphic novel:
Though published in 1986, Maus started making headlines again in 2022 after a Tennessee school board voted unanimously to ban the book from its curriculum.
Further reading on the book-banning controversy:
MAUS: The comics that won the Pulitzer Prize (an excerpt from "The Art Of Spiegelman"):
