Authors beware! Your book may be banned by school districts.

Will Your Book be Banned?

A letter to the editor in the January 30, 2023 Dallas Morning News caught my eye this morning. According to the writer, McKinney ISD changed its review process to remove books based on a review of “specific passages.” The new McKinney ISD library review process allows for the “review and removal of books based on only an individual paragraph or passage.” The first book removed under the new policy is The Bluest Eye which won the Nobel Prize for literature.

This form of censorship indicates that a simple Grammarly check will need to be augmented by a “suitability” check.

For authors, this means that the audience for your book may be significantly reduced. This ban may have started with a school district, but it may soon spread to local public libraries, book stores, and online retailers. Your audience is now about twenty-five readers. How will publishers respond to these restrictions? Will they print your book if it has an unsuitable passage? They are in business to make money and loss of market may make it tough or impossible to get your manuscript published.

While parents want and should be able to exercise control of what their children read, these blanket rules place an academic institution or government in charge of their child’s education.

Houston Chronicle Publishes List of Banned Books