A group of parents has requested that about two dozen books the district recently removed from the Marietta High School library be reinstated.
The Marietta City Schools Board of Education in September directed the superintendent to review all of the books in its high school library for sexually explicit content. In December, Superintendent Grant Rivera recommended 23 of the more than 20,000 books in the library be removed. The school board gave parents 30 days to appeal the list.
Eleven parents filed the appeals this week, working under a newly created parent group called Marietta in the Middle. In the appeals, they make the case that the books shouldn’t have been removed; that if they are to be removed, other books in the library should also be removed; and that the removed books disproportionately feature LGBTQ+ characters.
“A team of parents and community members did what MCS School Board members were unwilling to do — we read all 23 books,” said Karla Jacobs, a Marietta in the Middle board member, in a press release. “And we discovered that not only are they not pornographic or obscene, compared to ‘classics’ the Board left in the library like ‘The Color Purple,’ ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ many of them have less explicit sexual content and even no sexual content at all.”
Rivera told school board members in December that he was surprised by the content of the books that were removed. “I would have removed every one of these 23 books if there was no directive that existed,” he said.
Five of the 23 removed books are on the American Library Association’s list of the most challenged books in 2022. Six are on the organization’s list of 100 most banned and challenged books in the 2010s.
The school board has already struck down appeals by some of the same parents to reinstate the first books that were removed: “Flamer” by Mike Curato and “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews.
The school board will vote on the appeals Tuesday, a district spokesperson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the appeals process. The story has been updated.
Books removed from Marietta High School library
1. “Monday’s Not Coming” by Tiffany D. Jackson
2. “Beyond Magenta” by Susan Kuklin
3. “More Happy Than Not” by Adam Silvera
4. “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky
5. “Crank” by Ellen Hopkins
6. “The Infinite Moment of Us” by Lauren Myracle
7. “13 Reasons Why” by Jay Asher
8. “City of Thieves” by David Benioff
9. “Juliet Takes a Breath” by Gabby Rivera
10. “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas
11. “A Court of Thorns and Roses” by Sarah J. Maas
12. “A Court of Wings and Ruin” by Sarah J. Maas
13. “A Court of Frost and Starlight” by Sarah J. Maas
14. “Lucky” by Alice Sebold
15. “Tricks” by Ellen Hopkins
16. “Blankets” by Craig Thompson
17. “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson
18. “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson
19. “I Love You, Beth Cooper” by Larry Doyle
20. “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover
21. “Identical” by Ellen Hopkins
22. “Grasshopper Jungle” by Andrew Smith
23. “The Casual Vacancy” by J.K. Rowling
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