Sales soar for Maus after school district in U.S. banned the Holocaust graphic novel

Just days after the banning of Maus by a Tennessee school district made national news, two editions of Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust have reached the top 20 on Amazon.com and are in limited supply.

Maus was No. 12 on Amazon as of early Friday evening, and it was not available for delivery until mid-February.

The Complete Maus, which includes a second volume, was No. 9 and out of stock.

Neither book was in the top 1,000 at the beginning of the week.

Earlier this month, the McMinn County School Board in Tennessee voted to remove Maus due to "inappropriate language" and an illustration of a nude woman, according to minutes from a board meeting.

Spiegelman's autobiographical book, winner of a Pulitzer in 1992, tells of his father's experiences as a Holocaust survivor.

In an interview, Spiegelman told CNBC he was "baffled" by the school board's decision and called the action "Orwellian."

"It's leaving me with my jaw open, like, 'What?"' he said.

The decision comes as conservative officials across the U.S. have increasingly tried to limit the type of books that children are exposed to, including those that address structural racism and LGBTQ issues.

The Republican governors in South Carolina and Texas have called on superintendents to perform a systemic review of "inappropriate" materials in their states' schools

The minutes from the school board meeting indicate objections over some of the language used in Maus.

Initially, director of schools Lee Parkison suggested redacting it "to get rid of the eight curse words and the picture of the woman that was objected to."

The nude woman is drawn as a mouse. In the graphic novel, Jews are drawn as mice and the Nazis are drawn as cats.

Minutes of the meeting show that board members emphasized they did not object to teaching about the Holocaust but that some were concerned the work was not age-appropriate.