Being disturbing is orthogonal to literature quality. It shouldn't be avoided, but 'disturbing' by itself has no particular merit, any more than science fiction

Being disturbing is orthogonal to literature quality. It shouldn't be avoided, but 'disturbing' by itself has no particular merit, any more than science fiction or romance by itself has particular merit. Specifically, if you are going to force kids to read books in a class, you should find something that increases their worldview, gives them something new to think about, and whether that is disturbing or not shouldn't matter.