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Two books about LGBTQ+ experience previously banned have been returned to school shelves in a Missouri School District. George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue” and “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel was removed from four high schools in North Kansas City last month, according to the New York Daily News.  

Part of the pushback against the removal of the books came from students themselves. According to the Kansas City Star, a student-led petition had more than 1,000 signatures.  

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Parents in another nearby district also pushed back against a proposed book ban. The push is part of the uninformed panic around school decision-making and student opportunity to learn about valuable perspectives.  

Both books discuss perspectives and experiences not commonly represented in literature, providing a more representative selection for students. Claims that the content is “pornographic” are unfounded.  

Johnson tweeted Monday that the book has been threatened or pulled in several states, but the fight isn’t over.  

“This is a major win for authors, students, parents, librarians & teachers,” Johnson tweeted. “This means we have legal precedent & grounds to fight the book bans. All Boys Aren’t Blue continues to be pulled from libraries, but we now have a legal way to challenge that.” 

The book ban was spurred by a group that also opposes school mask mandates. Before the board’s announcement, the ACLU of Missouri issued a written warning to the school district explaining existing precedent. 

“Censoring these books is an attempt to appease the irascible bunch seeking to inflame political passions at the expense of students’ opportunity to learn,” said Tony Rothert, ACLU of Missouri Director of Integrated Advocacy. “This is an instance when elected officials must stand up for the Constitution, not cave to a few boisterous extremists.” 

Source: Previously Banned Books Returned To Several North Kansas City High School Libraries

There is no bond like that of family. It is the foundation upon which each of us are built, its stability or unsteadiness providing the emotional bedrock on which we stand. For George M. Johnson, the bestselling author of 2020’s groundbreaking “memoir-manifesto” All Boys Aren’t Blue, the story really began with a childhood spent primarily in the company of their male cousins under the guidance and unconditional love of family matriarch Nanny, born as Louise Kennedy Evans Elder and also affectionately known as “Big Lou.”

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As the 2020 The Root 100 honoree told us last year when appearing on The Root Presents: It’s Lit!, it was those years and the early lessons they imparted that inspired their second book, We Are Not Broken, published Tuesday, Sept. 7.As described by publisher Little, Brown for Young Readers, Johnson’s second memoir “tenderly captures the unique experience of growing up Black in America, and their rich storytelling is interspersed with touching letters from the grandchildren that pay tribute to Nanny,” who died in late 2019.

Johnson further explained the impact of their late grandmother’s love and legacy to us last fall, noting: “[what] I noticed is that a lot of people were quoting me from my [first] book, like pulling quotes and like, ‘Oh, I love that George said this; I love that George said that.’ And for me, it was interesting because I thought about like, well, how many people get quoted that we don’t ever learn about or hear about? How many people do we hear about that never get quoted about? Like we always know the MLK quotes, we know all of the Malcolm X quotes. We know Fannie Lou Hamer and Toni Morrison. But I was like, but my grandmother had quotes too. And that was our wisdom. That was our connection. That was our everything.”

Source: ‘Did We Kill Matt?’: George M. Johnson Shares an Exclusive Excerpt From Their New Book, We Are Not Broken