In April, Gov. Bill Lee signed into law House Bill 843, which mandates that “materials in a library collection must be suitable for the age and maturity levels of the students who may access the materials and must be suitable for, and consistent with, the educational mission of the school.”
The full text of the bill and those suitability requirements can be found here.
As a result, schools have begun removing from their shelves books students have read for decades. At a school board meeting in Wilson County on Thursday, Director of Schools Ed Luttrell included in his report a full list of 390 books that have been banned by the county. The titles include “The Green Mile” by Steven King, “Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold, “Wacky Wednesday” by Dr. Seuss, “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline, “The Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead and more.
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