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Florida School Board Removes Library Book for ‘Grooming Children’

Last year, one parent within the Hillsborough County Public Schools community complained that a district library had a copy of the book.

A Florida school board decided in a 4-3 vote during a special meeting Tuesday to ban a previously approved young-adult book that critics felt was “grooming children.” Last year, one parent within the Hillsborough County Public Schools community complained that the Pierce Middle School library library had a copy of This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson, a coming-of-age non-fiction story about a person learning, understanding, and accepting their sexuality and gender orientation. After receiving the complaint, a school committee determined the book could stay. That decision was appealed, and a district committee also ruled the book could stay. But that decision was appealed as well, leading to Tuesday’s meeting where more than 60 people were in attendance. “This book has to go,” said one grandmother. “I don’t want my grandchild reading this book.” However, other meeting attendees felt the board’s decision set “a very scary precedent for our future of books.”