Literacy Matters Vol. 25 Winter 2025

committee determine it was not appropriate for any students in the district. Originally, The Haters was available in some Beaufort County schools for grades 6-12. The book is about best friends Wes and Corey, who decide to ditch jazz camp and go on the road as a band when they meet Ash, a charismatic girl with unusual musical skills. The Haters is a recent Young Adult book that may appeal to the reading interests of diverse groups of students and would typically be included in school or classroom libraries. When commenting on the educational significance and quality of the book, committee members were divided. One member wrote, “recreational reading more than educational” (Beaufort County School District, 2022c, p. 1), a common focus of the reviews. One member explicitly stated their unwillingness to move beyond the recreational nature of the text, saying, “My personal opinion of the quality, content, and manner of representation of this text is secondary to my responsibility to make a professional adult decision about materials [that] would edify students” (Beaufort County School District, 2022c, p. 8). In regards to the representation that the book provides, one committee member wrote that the book “supports/represents many religious, ethnic[sic], racial groups”while also checking that the novel does not “reflect the needs/interests of the school and the culture of the school community” (Beaufort County School District, 2022c, p. 4), indicating a perceived mismatch between representation in the book and the school community. supplying the material due to the excessive use of profanity (over 375 profane words)” (Beaufort County School District, 2022c, p. 7). Several reviewmembers echoed similar sentiments about the text’s appropriateness. Another wrote “the amount of profanity, dick references, and careless handling of sexual conduct are evidence of the immaturity of the story’s protagonists” (Beaufort County School District, 2022c, p. 9). On the other side, one committee member voted for the text to be available for grades 9-12, writing that “many kids could relate to characters and storyline” (Beaufort County School District, 2022c, p. 12). Two committee members voted to restrict The Haters to grades 9-12 and three members voted to remove the book completely. The committee’s decision was not appealed to the school board so the decision remains and the books are not allowed in circulation at any schools. The committee’s decisions and justifications for The Haters , along with The Perks of Being aWallflower and The Handmaid’s Tale , offer insight into decision-making during book review processes that include diverse community members. Student Response A notable student response to the book challenges in Beaufort County was the advocacy efforts of high school students in the Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization (DAYLO). DAYLO was started as a student-led book club and literacy service organization by Beaufort High School student Holland Perryman in 2021 to address the literacy needs of her community and promote diversity (The Island News, 2024). After the challenge and removal of books in Beaufort County in 2022, DAYLO members added advocacy, attending school board meetings and speaking Commenting on the appropriateness of the text, one member wrote, “student interest in the book should not warrant the District

that follows Charlie as he navigates the intricacies of being a teenager in the 1990s while facing the challenges of friendship, social anxiety, and mental health. Typically, the book is offered as a choice in libraries for adolescents but is increasingly utilized as an optional or assigned book in English classrooms. Writing about the educational significance of Perks , one committee member wrote, “The book serves as a vehicle for discussing trauma (sexual abuse, isolation, mental illness) many students experience and would not share otherwise” (Beaufort County School District, 2022b, p. 38). Another wrote, “all novels are problem-solving texts. No trouble = no story. And the overarching message of the novel is a call to action to participate in life” (Beaufort County School District, 2022b, p. 43). Committee members all checked off on a list that the novel had educational significance, including that it “promotes the integration of higher level thinking skills” and“directly supports the acquisition of related standards” (Beaufort County School District, 2022b). When indicating what grades the book was appropriate for, reviewers noted specific occurrences that supported their recommendation for grades 9-12, including“sex throughout (not descriptive),”“smoking, weed, LSD, drinking throughout,” and “adolescent age = forming identity” (Beaufort County School District, 2022b, p. 36). One committee member suggested that the book be made “available, not required (in whole) - only for Juniors/Seniors to check out?” (Beaufort County School District, 2022b, p. 36). One member wrote, “the recommended reading age as identified by readers and reflected in the book’s metadata is ‘13+.’The publisher-provided grade-level recommendation in the metadata is grades 7-12. That the novel has been deemed appropriate for high school readers by multiple sources is well established” (Beaufort County School District, 2022b, p. 44). All six committee members voted to return the book to grades 9-12 only (Beaufort County School District, 2022b), which was appealed to the school board and upheld, ending the process for Perks . While this was a unanimous vote by committee members, decisions that restrict books to high school are complicated by the presence of high school credit courses like English I for eighth grade students where the books may be included in course syllabi. Young Adult books are marketed as being appropriate for students in grades 7-12 or ages 13 and up, so removing these books from libraries removes them from part of their intended audiences. Removed Completely Over the year-and-a-half-long review of the 97 challenged texts, five books were removed entirely from circulation in Beaufort County schools by book review committees. Of the five removed books, three are Young Adult ( The Haters by Jesse Andrews, Forever for a Year by B.T. Gottfried, and Beautiful by Amy Reed) and two adult fiction ( It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover and Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult). Beautiful , Forever For a Year. and Nineteen Minutes were removed by committees with three members due to low volunteer turnout, while the other two completely removed books had five-member committees (Dimitrov, 2023a). The Haters by Jesse Andrews, then, is an example of a completely removed title that was intended for adolescent readers and had a

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