A Year Among My Fellow Banned Writers

This personal reflection is part of a series called Turning Points, in which writers explore what critical moments from this year might mean for the year ahead. You can read more by visiting the Turning Points series page.

Turning Point: More than 10,000 books were targeted for removal from school shelves in the United States in the 2023-2024 academic year.

As a kid, I cataloged the books I read each year in a three-ring notebook. I read lots of books, not all of them favorites, but I was proud to read and review each one for my own pleasure, from fairy tales to books on the lives of saints. Even if I didn’t like a tome, I read it anyway. Every book will teach you something, if you let it.

Now, as I near 70 years of age, I’ve made it a goal to read books that have recently been targeted for bans in South Texas public schools. In the spring, a church group approached school boards in the Rio Grande Valley and brought certain titles to their attention, saying that some of the content in the books was “extremely vulgar and offensive.” The group specified reasons for requesting each book’s expulsion, though some of the themes it cited — sexual abuse and parental violence — are also found in the pages of the Bible, which could also be labeled offensive if not read in context. The church group didn’t use the word “ban” — they preferred that officials “willingly remove” these books. This raised my curiosity.

Earlier this year I thought I would make the group’s list my summer reading project, but with 676 titles to get through, I had to extend my goal beyond one season.