Tucked away in the corner of a Gainesville bookstore, Janet McGee read one of the most frequently banned children’s books in the United States for the first time.
“It was incredible,” she said. “There were a lot of times when I got so uncomfortable getting into the character’s heads, and I’d have to put the book down, but I kept coming back.”
Following state education reforms allowing the removal of elementary through high school level books containing themes including race, sexuality and gender among others, new legislation aims to limit the number of citizen book objections to school district library materials. Local politicians, teachers and parents expressed differing opinions concerning the state of Alachua County book challenges.
Having taken effect July 1, House Bill 1285 specifies that county residents who are not the parent or guardian of a student “with access to school district materials” may only object to a maximum of one material per month. However, there is no limit to the number of objections parents or guardians may make.
Previous legislation
The law follows book challenges enacted by HB 1467 signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022, which required school districts to list reading materials for parent review in an attempt to protect children from what he called “indoctrination.”
“We are not going to let politicians deny parents the right to know what is being taught in our schools. I’m proud to sign this legislation that ensures curriculum transparency,” DeSantis said in a 2022 press release.
Enacted in 2023, HB 1069 focused on removing content concerning sexual and gender identity in public schools from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade and extended parent and citizen involvement in the book challenging process for “pornographic” and “sexually explicit material,” which is now restricted for non-parent citizens by HB 1285.
Teachers who failed to register reading material of concern faced penalties, including the loss of teaching certification, fines or criminal charges in extreme cases.
While the legislation impacts public schools statewide, implementation varies by school district.
Alachua County book challenges
Alachua County Public Schools District Media Specialist Patty Duval said books at each school are curated by individual media specialists who read recommendations for age-appropriateness from peer-reviewed journals, purchase sets from vetted publishing companies and add new books based on popular check-outs.
A parent or citizen seeking removal must submit the “Citizen’s Request for Reconsideration of Library Materials” form to the principal of their child’s school. In accordance with HB 1285, the form will be updated to specify whether the objector is a parent or resident and whether the resident has made an objection within the last 30 days, Duval said.
While books determined to be sexually explicit or pornographic material are removed immediately pending further investigation, Duval said challenges on other grounds allow books to remain on shelves until a ruling is made by a district-level committee formed by the curriculum supervisor. The group is required to contain media specialists, guidance counselors, teachers and at least one parent representative, Duval said.
“In order to analyze the suitability and appropriateness of a book, we look at the student’s ability to comprehend the material,” she said.
Following a committee decision, the Alachua County School Board will make the final order following public comment.
However, parents are not limited to district-level book challenges when it comes to library oversight. Duval said the ACPS media access form allows parents to place restrictions on their child’s reading material. Without it, students have unlimited access to the library.
“If they’re concerned about a specific topic that their student may come across in the library, say for example they don’t want their children to read anything about gender identity…then they would indicate that in the form,” she said. “We would put a flag on that student’s account so every time they go to check out, a reminder would pop up [for the media specialist] to make sure that they’re not checking out these kinds of topics.”
However, she said some parents feel the limit isn’t strict enough, as school libraries can’t guarantee the keyword won’t appear in the book itself.
Alachua County School Board member Sarah Rockwell said she reads every challenged book before it’s presented for review. With the ACSB agenda set only one week in advance, she expressed frustration judging the material with so little time, especially when the book is part of a series.
“I personally don’t feel comfortable voting on something that I haven’t read,” she said. “Another reason I don’t feel comfortable not reading them is that the challenges are not always consistent with what’s in the book.”
Rockwell said she read a book challenged for “sexual content” that was in no way reflective of the citizen’s concerns, leading her to believe they did not read it at all before filing a complaint.
Books evaluated for sexual content are determined by grade level appropriateness and literary importance. Rockwell said the content can be important to the plot and not for entertainment purposes, including the case of Maya Angelou’s portrayal of assault in “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”
“It’s oftentimes sexual violence that shapes a character and how they react to the world,” she said.
“Poor interpretations” of the sexually explicit guidelines listed in HB 1069 go against previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings, Rockwell said. Miller v. California determined obscene speech not protected by the First Amendment must be without serious “literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”
“These book challenges are creating an environment of animosity and distrust between parents and educators,” she said. “When you challenge the materials that have been curated by professionals and state that those professionals are breaking the law and grooming and corrupting children, you’re not going to have an amicable working relationship with those professionals.”
Rockwell said if schools want generations of future citizens who are “knowledgeable, empathetic and confident,” students need to have access to books that “are a mirror for their own experiences so that they feel validated as who they are” and also “serve as a window so that they can see into the life of somebody who’s different from them, an can build empathy for other people.”
PEN America, a nonprofit organization defending free speech, completed a study on nationwide book bans for the 2022-2023 school year that found over 40% of the restrictions originated in Florida school districts. Across 33 of Florida’s 69 school districts, PEN America recorded 1,406 book ban cases. Alachua County was not listed.
Additionally, public libraries beyond school grounds saw a 92% increase in the number of 2023 challenges from the previous year, according to the American Library Association.
Alachua County District Library Public Relations Manager Brad McClenny said the district strongly condemns “censorship and intimidation in any form.”
“We champion and defend the freedom to speak, the freedom to publish and the freedom to read, as promised by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America,” McClenny wrote in an email to The Alligator. “The ACLD will continue to provide materials with a broad range of viewpoints, opinions and ideas, in our effort to support the information needs of our diverse community.”
Only nine individuals are responsible for all 44 Alachua County book challenges as of May 30, according to the ACSB challenge spreadsheet.
State Sen. Keith Perry, R-Gainesville, serves as a member of the Florida Senate Education PK-12 Committee. He has launched three Alachua County complaints since 2023.
Perry said he read excerpts from each book he challenged and that his main motivation was preserving “age-appropriate” writing for young students. As a parent, he said the school system or “government agency” allowing the discussion of sensitive issues like sexuality and violence without parent consent is worrisome.
“It goes against the family structure of what I think our country is founded on,” he said.
While Perry said he felt the government should have a role in education, it shouldn’t be unchecked or unquestioned, which he said led him to launch a “check-and-balance” through book bans.
Perry said the term “book banning” is too broad to use for removal from schools as no restrictions are placed within the home or from online sources.
“It’s a pedestrian, superficial argument to say kids aren’t going to be getting an education, or a proper education,” he said. “We’re not talking about children not having access to information, we’re just talking about what information the government is allowed to give those kids.”
‘Banned books books club’
The Lynx, a Gainesville bookstore that opened in April, hosts a “banned books book club” monthly. Gina Marks, a 24-year-old Gainesville resident and club founder, said they also led a similar group at their previous job in Tallahassee.
“I had so many really wonderful experiences and discussions,” they said. “I figured, why not bring to a bookstore that's specifically uplifting banned books and bringing the conversation more to the Gainesville community as well.”
Each meeting consists of a discussion about the book of the month, which Marks said they choose based on top lists of nationwide banned books, with aims to promote open conversations.
“Flamer” by Mike Curato was the topic of discussion at The Lynx’s June 20 banned books book club meeting. The book is a semi-autobiographical graphic novel describing the story of a boy struggling to understand his sexual orientation while targeted by bullies at a Boy Scouts summer camp in 1995.
“Flamer” was challenged 67 times nationally for “LGBTQ+ and sexually explicit content.”
Alachua County third-grade teacher Emily Zawoy said she joined the club June 20. To comply with state legislation, the 26-year-old was required to scan nearly 600 classroom books to compile a list for district approval in a process that took months, she said. If the book’s barcode or ISBN didn’t match their database, she said it couldn’t remain in her classroom.
Zawoy said parents should let their children guide them to what they want to read instead of filing restrictions on information.
“Don’t let a banned book stop you,” she said. “You know your kid the best, you know better than anyone else does.”
Janet McGee, a 67-year-old Gainesville resident, said she wished she could’ve read “Flamer” when she was a teenager.
“In my later years, I’ve discovered that some of the people who graduated from high school with me were gay,” she said. “We need to be more understanding of all of the people who live around us. We don’t need to make life any harder than it already is.”
Tiffanny de Zayas, a 26-year-old Gainesville resident, said they began to read as many banned books as possible to “understand what everybody was trying to hide,” emphasizing that parents shouldn’t shy away from discussing difficult topics with their children.
“Kids are not two-dimensional,” they said. “They’re much more intelligent than we give them credit for…You know whether they’re going to be able to deal with a topic.”
Tiare Fridrich, a 28-year-old Gainesville resident, also attended the book club June 20, though they hadn’t read “Flamer” in advance. Along with Zayas, Fridrich said they wished nervous parents would read books themselves before giving them to their child.
“There are people out there that think that if they aren’t teaching it to their children then their children will never learn it,” Fridrich said. “Kids need to be given the language to talk about things, and books give them that, especially if their parents aren’t having those conversations with them.”
Contact Sara-James Ranta at sranta@alligator.org. Follow her on X @sarajamesranta
Sara-James Ranta is a third-year journalism major, minoring in sociology of social justice and policy. Previously, she served as a general assignment reporter for The Alligator's university desk.
