“The Chocolate War” will no longer be required reading for Harford County freshmen, after numerous parents took issue with its violence and strong language.

Superintendent Jacqueline Haas will go before the Board of Education on Tuesday to announce that Robert Cormier’s 1974 novel will be pulled from the mandatory ninth-grade “living in a contemporary world” class, despite a review committee’s unanimous ruling that it should be kept.

“The controversy that has occurred over ‘The Chocolate War’ has left it unusable at this time,” Haas wrote in her decision, released on the schools’ Web site this week. “While the Superintendent would want to make the decision … on the merits of the book, the divergent views of this work make it difficult to continue its use at this time.”

Parents came to Board of Education meetings throughout the summer to protest the book’s language, depictions of violence and references to sex.

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The book was temporarily pulled in September, pending a review by a committee of parents, teachers, administrators and librarians. None of the participants was named in the report, due to the sensitive nature of the subject, Haas said.

“The educational value of the novel outweighs any concerns about language and graphic scenes,” the committee wrote in its report. “Teaching this novel in no way condones the evil portrayed or the language used … The book prompts a discussion of morality and everyone’s human responsibility to stand up against cruelty and evil.”

Most of the objections were the work of a small number of parents, the committee said, and several letters of concern were copied directly from the Web site of the advocacy group “Parents Against Bad Books in Schools.”

Cormier’s novel, which ranked among the top 10 most-banned books of the 1990s, pits its protagonist against teenage gangs and corrupt teachers at a private all-boys school.

As a result of the decision, the bullying and harassment unit of the course will not be taught this year and will be taught with an alternate “research” angle beginning in this fall. Curriculum officials will work to identify a suitable replacement book, comparing alternatives to “The Chocolate War” over the next year, Haas wrote.

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com