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聽Hood Feminism,听The Poet X,听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.”
These students live in a state that has banned more books than nearly any other,听. The Texas State Board of Education聽聽prohibiting what it calls “sexually explicit, pervasively vulgar or educationally unsuitable books in public schools.” Over the past two years,听or been聽聽after making challenged books available to students.
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