Across the United States, school districts are being assailed for asking students to come to terms with history. The attacks have challenged the teaching of such novels as Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) to high school literature students, and accounts of school desegregation such as Ruby Bridges Goes to School (2003) to elementary-school children. As efforts to purge school curricula of difficult history have grown in scope, the range of topics has expanded to include books on such subjects as the treatment of Native Americans, the experiences of lesbian and gay teenagers, and representations of the Holocaust. Such attempts to avoid…