PSA: My high school banned The Hate U Give and then the librarian had to hide it in the periodical section

So this happened three weeks ago at my old high school in Austin. The school board voted to pull The Hate U Give from the curriculum because they said it was "too divisive" about police stuff. But get this (and this is the funny part) my friend who still works there said the librarian snuck a bunch of copies into the periodical section under "current events" so kids could still check them out. I mean the whole reason the book hits so hard is because it shows how different people see the same situation totally differently. That's literally the point of reading it right? So someone in the admin finally noticed last Tuesday and told her to stop. Now she's just leaving them on a cart by the back door. Has anyone else seen libraries get creative like this when books get banned? I'm curious what other workarounds people have pulled off.

2 comments

2 Comments

aaronf4015d agoTop Commenter

Wait, they actually banned that book in Austin? That's wild to me because I thought Austin was pretty progressive about stuff like that. @xena_allen I get what you're saying about kids finding worse stuff online, but banning a book that literally shows different sides of a story just makes people more curious about it. That librarian is a legend for pulling that cart trick though. Sneaking it into periodicals was smart since nobody checks those. I bet the school board is kicking themselves now because this whole thing probably made forty times more kids want to read it compared to when it was just sitting on a shelf.

xena_allen15d ago

Feels like a lot of drama over a book. Kids can find worse stuff online in five seconds.