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A SECRET SHELF OF BANNED BOOKS THRIVES IN A TEXAS SCHOOL, UNDER THE
NOSE OF CENSORS  
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Neda Ulaby
January 29, 2024
NPR
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_ Over the past two years, Texas teachers have lost jobs or been
pressured to resign after making challenged books available to
students. The teacher who created this bookshelf could become a target
for far right-wing groups. _

, Becky Harlan/NPR

 

In the far, far suburbs of Houston, Texas, three teenagers are talking
at a coffee shop about a clandestine bookshelf in their public school
classroom. It's filled with books that have been challenged or banned.

"Some of the books that I've read are books like _Hood
Feminism_, _The Poet X_, _Gabi, A Girl in Pieces_," says one of the
girls. She's a 17-year-old senior with round glasses and long braids.
The books, she says, sparked her feminist consciousness. "I just see,
especially in my community, a lot of women being talked down upon and
those books [were] really nice to read."

[To fight so-called book bans, some states are threatening to withhold
funding ]
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These students live in a state that has banned more books than nearly
any other, according to PEN America
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The Texas State Board of Education passed a policy in late 2023
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what it calls "sexually explicit, pervasively vulgar or educationally
unsuitable books in public schools." Over the past two years, Texas
teachers have lost jobs 
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been pressured to resign
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making challenged books available to students.

The teacher who created this bookshelf could become a target for far
right-wing groups. That's why NPR is not naming her, nor her students.

"We don't want to jeopardize our teacher in any way, or the
bookshelf," another teenager explains. Until recently, he says, he was
not naturally inclined toward reading. But the secret bookshelf opened
a world of characters and situations he immediately related to. "Just
to see Latinos, like LGBTQ," he says. "That's not something you really
see in our community, or it's not very well represented at all."

The secret bookshelf began in late 2021, when then-state Rep. Matt
Krause sent public schools a list of 850 books
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wanted banned from schools. They might, he said, "make students feel
discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological
distress because of their race or sex."

The books that make you uncomfortable are the books that make you
think. Isn't that what school is supposed to do? It's supposed to make
you think?

That made this teacher furious. "The books that make you uncomfortable
are the books that make you think," she told NPR. "Isn't that what
school is supposed to do? It's supposed to make you think?"

She swung into action, calling friends to support a bookshelf that
would include all of the books Krause wanted banned. Then she enlisted
a student to put it together.

"I went through the list and found the ones that I thought were cool,"
he recalled to NPR over a London Fog latte. "And then she gave me her
[credit] card and I bought them. It was a lot of gay books, I remember
that."

That same student came out as trans to his family while in high
school. "I wouldn't call them supportive, so I had to do a lot of
sneaking around," he said quietly. Now 19, he's graduated and works as
a host in a restaurant while deciding on his next move.

"Having these books, having these stories out there meant a lot to me,
because I felt seen," he said. Especially meaningful, he added, during
a fraught time when Texas lawmakers banned transition-related care for
teenagers. "Because of the way the laws are going for trans people
especially," he said, "it could be assumed that [my teacher is]
grooming kids. And that would be terrible because that's not what
she's doing at all."

NPR repeatedly reached out to former Texas lawmaker Matt Krause for
comment and got no response. He is currently running for county
commissioner in the Fort Worth area.

The chief of communications for the public school district thanked NPR
for "highlighting this very important topic," but said, "we're going
to pass on this opportunity," when asked to comment on how
administrators are implementing policies around books that have been
challenged.

"We've been seeing a climate of fear — and a variety of
self-censorship — going on by school leaders or librarians who do
not understand the implications of the law or are fearful for their
jobs," said Carolyn Foote. She's a retired English teacher and
librarian who co-created the activist group Texas FReadom Fighters
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Kasey Meehan of the free speech advocacy group PEN America
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points to a teacher fired last year
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sharing a graphic novel with her students that showed Anne Frank
having a romantic daydream about another girl. Another
teacher featured on an NBC podcast
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her job under pressure after making literature available to students
featuring a positive transgender character.

"Parents are taking books from schools and bringing them to police or
sheriff offices and accusing librarians and educators of providing
sexually explicit material to students," Meehan says.

"It does make me nervous," admitted the Houston teacher with the
secret bookshelf. "I mean, this is absolutely silly that I am not free
to talk about books without giving my name and worrying about
repercussions."

At some point, she hopes, it will no longer have to be a secret.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals blocked part of a
recently passed state bill, known as HB 900, that would have required
booksellers and publishers to rate any books sold to schools for
sexual content. This was seen as a victory for freedom-to-read
activists, but some of them noted to NPR that HB 900 still contains
dangerously vague language about material prohibited in school and no
clear guidelines about enforcement.

"I do believe that book banning is going to go away," the teacher
says, firmly. But for now she adds, "I intend for this library to
just keep growing."

_Neda Ulaby reports on arts, entertainment, and cultural trends for
NPR's Arts Desk.  Scouring the various and often overlapping worlds
of art, music, television, film, new media and literature, Ulaby's
stories reflect political and economic realities, cultural issues,
obsessions and transitions._

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* texas
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