Earlier this semester, the USD373 Board of Education was presented with a letter citing grievances against over 30 books in the English curriculum at Newton High School, most of which were new this year and all but one of which were written by authors of color. Recently, these books have been taken off the shelves and out of classrooms on a “soft-ban” while they are reviewed. They will have to go through a multi-step process before any of them can be added back into the curriculum. Most of these books had been used as a part of “Lit-Circles” within classrooms where students had the opportunity to select a book from the English Department to read. Books that were removed include:

There There  by Tommy Orange
Dear Martin by Nic Stone
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds
The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez, Various, et. al
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Homegoing by Yaa Gyansi
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Girl with Seven Names by H. Lee
A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
News of the World by Paulette Jiles
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From by Jennifer De Leon
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez
Allegedly by Tiffany Jackson
Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

We will be presenting this petition in front of the Newton Board of Education to show them how many people stand in support of keeping these books within the curriculum. More information can be found at this link or on our LinkTree!