READING, Pa. — The Muhlenberg School Board voted unanimously to remove the novel The Buffalo Tree, by Adam Rapp, from its curriculum, citing explicit sexual references and vulgar language.

The book had been part of the approved 11th-grade curriculum since 2000, but a few parents told the board that its graphic sexual content was inappropriate for high school students.

Muhlenberg junior Brittany L. Hunsicker, who had complained to the board, read excerpts at an April 13 public meeting, but board members stopped her after a few paragraphs.

“If this type of book is in our school, then why not have Hustler and Penthouse in the school library?” board member Otto W. Voit III said.

Dr. Joseph S. Yarworth, Muhlenberg superintendent, said copies of the novel were removed from school library and classroom shelves on April 14.

The author, reached by telephone, said he was shocked that the novel, describing the life of a young man serving a sentence in a juvenile detention center, was banned. “This is a story about friendship, about survival and about kids trying to make it in the world,” Rapp said.

Though it deals with difficult subjects, students can often hear about the same matters on television or the Internet, he said. “I am stunned to think it would be banned in 2005 at a school district in America.”