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More Happy Than Not by @AdamSilvera was my 18th book in my 2022 #FReadom project to read works banned or threatened in Texas libraries and schools. The novel explores one of the important messages of #Pride (and of #Juneteenth for that matter), namely, the dual message that Joy Is Essential, and Remembering Is Also Essential. The two may sometimes seem opposed, but we must find a balance that admits both - if we forego either, we can rob ourselves (and those we love) of the fullness of life. www.adamsilvera.com/more-happy-than-not-1

Continuing my 2022 #FReadom project to explore books banned or threatened in Texas libraries and schools. My 17th book was Lobizona, the terrific YA fantasy novel that launches Romina Garber's "Wolves of No World" series. rominagarber.com//books/lobizona/

In the world she has built for the Septimus, Garber does what great fantasy does best: holds up a mirror to our own reality that reflects back things that we may not have wanted to see, but that are absolutely true. That's why this one scares the antilibrarians.

What Girls Are Made Of by Elana K Arnold was the 16th book in my 2022 #FReadom quest to read books that have been threatened or removed from Texas libraries and schools. As dads, we should fight for our daughters' access to meaningful stories like this. elanakarnold.com/book/what-girls-made/

After the horrific paroxysms of toxic masculinity Texas saw this week in Uvalde, there's no justifying telling kids to avert their eyes from the images of martyrs, virgins, saints, and realities of female growing up that Arnold captures in Nina's deeply truthful voice.

The 15th book in my 2022 #FReadom quest - to read works removed or threatened in Texas schools and libraries - was Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. www.nationalbook.org/books/caste-the-origins-of-our-discontents/

Among many other insights, I was especially struck by Chapter 14, in which Wilkerson presented examples of upper-caste people "overriding the rightful role of lower-caste parents & their children." We see this caste power play in the current spate of book bans, curriculum reviews, & "parental bills of rights" (which parents' rights?).

In my 2022 #FReadom reading list of books removed or threatened in Texas libraries and schools, my 14th read was the deeply affecting Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes. jewellparkerrhodes.com/children/books/ghost-boys/

While Ghost Boys is a very personal story about a police shooting of a young teen with a toy gun, Rhodes deftly avoids villianizing an individual - instead allowing the ghost boys to lift us readers to a different plane, to survey bigger, societal issues.

I just finished Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, the 13th book in my 2022 #FReadom reading list of books removed or threatened in Texas libraries and schools. I found Cal Stephanides to be a truly scintillating narrative voice for a fascinating story.

Eugenides offers rich, multithreaded explorations of Detroit, Greek-American family life, and other areas near his own experience. And he may lead some readers to reflect on the meaning of sex & gender, despite rooting the story overall in rather binary notions of gender.

But I believe the novel's insights on gender identity and intersex reality would have been deeper & more insightful had Eugenides actually spoken with intersex people when writing the novel. Sadly, he didn't - a disappointing missed opportunity. www.intersexinitiative.org/popculture/middlesex-faq.html

John Irving's The Cider House Rules was the 12th book in my 2022 #FReadom project to read books removed or threatened in Texas libraries and schools. After it appeared on the Krause list, North East ISD recommended its removal in favor of something more "updated."

I'll reserve judgment until I've read the proposed replacement, but the moral wrestling with the causes and effects of pregnancy, orphans and abortion are no more out-of-date in Irving's novel than in the Dickens and Brontë novels that were its orphans' bedtime stories.

All Boys Aren't Blue by George M Johnson was 11th in my 2022 #FReadom quest to read books removed or threatened in Texas schools and libraries. Johnson shows his young adult readers the utmost respect: that is, he tells them the truth. us.macmillan.com/books/9780374312718/allboysarentblue

Johnson tells his truth with no sugarcoating nor melodrama: even in a supportive family, finding & claiming one's true identity is a long, rocky climb. Enroute, one may experience violence & even abuse, but also deep love & rich beauty - sometimes where one least expects.

I'm halfway to my 2022 #FReadom goal of reading 20 books challenged/threatened in Texas libraries & schools. Book 10 was The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg, a journalistic exploration of girls in Afghanistan who are raised/presented as boys. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/213715/the-underground-girls-of-kabul-by-jenny-nordberg

When we frame identity formation as "nature vs nurture," we overlook many factors that are neither natural nor nurturing: power, inequality, violence. Nordberg's reporting shows that expression of gender can be expression of resistance, of self-determination, of freedom.

In my 2022 #FReadom quest to read books banned or threatened in Texas libraries and schools, my 9th book was Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews. www.jesseandrews.com/me-and-earl-and-the-dying-girl

Besides being uproariously funny, Jesse Andrews dives into important truths: social anxiety and insecurity happen to every one of us, and so does grief. Everybody has to navigate them the best they can, there is no "right" way.

Carmen María Machado's In the Dream House was book #8 in my 2022 journey to explore works challenged or removed from Texas libraries or schools. carmenmariamachado.com/in-the-dream-house

I am afflicted with the librarian's obsession with footnotes, and was fascinated with the way Machado wove her citations of a particular source into almost another layer of narrative, like the voice of the Greek chorus.

"Race is the child of racism, not the father." - Ta-Nehisi Coates, from Between the World and Me, which was book #7 in my 2022 journey of reading books that have been challenged or removed from Texas libraries or schools.

The antilibrarians feign concern for reader "DISCOMFORT." But to me, the readers who find most discomfort in Coates or Kendi will be those whose starting-place was that of TAKING COMFORT in (their belief in) their own "whiteness."

The 6th book I've read from my 2022 #FReadom list (books banned or challenged in Texas libraries and schools) is @lxgino's Melissa (previously published as George). www.alexgino.com/books/melissa/

Melissa is a 4th-grade girl in a tough spot: her family, friends, & everyone she knows mistakenly think she's a boy named George. But she's about to discover some amazing things about them, too. Great story about how allies & support can come thru for us when we need them most.

Completed book #5 in my 2022 #FReadom list of books banned or challenged in Texas libraries and schools: Ibram X Kendi's thoroughly researched and educational Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America www.ibramxkendi.com/stamped

In this book, Kendi upends the myth that hateful people originate racist ideas which result in discrimination. It lays out a compelling historical case that discrimination (in service of power or self-interest) drives racist ideas, which then in turn drive hate.

I just finished Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez, an unflinching story of love in the midst of East Texas Jim Crow horror. It's book #4 toward my 2022 #FReadom goal to read 20 books banned, challenged or threatened in Texas libraries or schools. ashleyperez.com/books/

Some challenges to this book have asked, "What do we teach by exposing young people to such scenes?" The answer in a word: empathy. Perez' writing lays bare raw emotions that teenagers may need to process 1st-, 2nd-, or 3rd-hand, from racial hate, family abuse, gender violence.