NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas – The list of books under review at New Braunfels Independent School District libraries has grown five times longer after it was initially released more than a week ago.
The district now has 432 titles on its list of books under review for compliance with Senate Bill 13, which took effect at the beginning of the school year.
The review is being led by the district’s Policy and Compliance Coordinator, according to its website. It is unclear who else is on the team reviewing library materials.
Since the publication of the district’s under review list, 11 books have been labeled by the district as non-compliant with state law. The district
Ellen Hopkins’ book Crank and Ashley Pérez’s book Out of Darkness are among the 11 books removed from libraries.
Senate Bill 13 states that books in public school libraries and classrooms can not have any indecent, profane, obscene, harmful, vulgar or sexually explicit content.
Hopkins and Perez both said the full context of their works is important to understand why the objectionable content is included.
“It’s inspired by my daughter’s story of addiction when she was a teenager,” Hopkins said. “She was like this perfect kid, you know, she was a straight A+ student.”
“She just got hung up with the wrong people and her dreams were gone,” Hopkins continued. “So, I wrote [Crank] to try to keep other kids from going the same way that she did.”
Meanwhile, Out of Darkness is based on a 1937 school explosion caused by a natural gas leak in New London, Texas. The novel includes themes from her own personal life, too.
“The idea of the book was to explore the challenges and intentions of 1930s Texas,” Pérez said, “with more complexity and attention to what was happening for Mexican American communities in that time.”
Neither of the authors was surprised their books were marked non-compliant by the district. They said other districts have taken similar action, with some removing all of Hopkins’ titles completely.
“In the years since it’s been out, the readers that I’ve heard from, thanking me for turning them away from that path or giving them some kind of understanding of a loved one’s addiction,” Hopkins said.
Hopkins and Perez’ books were some of the first to be moved from ‘under SB13 review’ to ‘SB13 non-compliant‘ on NBISD’s website.
The move came just days after an NBISD board meeting that followed the closure of middle and high school libraries, so the district could review books in its libraries.
Hopkins said there are a couple queer characters in her book, as one potential reason for it being removed. She also said the book describes sexual assault because that was a part of her daughter’s experience while in the throes of addiction.
Pérez said her book also deals with sexual assault as well as mixed-race relationships.
“It is deeply personal because it deals with childhood sexual abuse and sexual assault,” Perez said.
Both authors told KSAT they believe their books belong in high schools, and are frustrated by the books being taken off of shelves to comply with state legislation.
“It should be dialogue. It should be in the conversation,” Hopkins said. “These kinds of books should be open conversation between parents.”
“Pretending that these things don’t exist,” Hopkins continued, “is not gonna give your kids the power to say no when they should say no.”
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