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ACLU-SC Opposes Book Bans as 93 Titles are Challenged in Berkeley County Schools
In response to a public records request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina (ACLU-SC), the Berkeley County School District has released a list of 93 books that have been targeted for censorship in the district’s classrooms and libraries. The challenged books are still available to students pending review.
ACLU-SC Executive Director Jace Woodrum provided this statement:
“Book banning is an unconstitutional infringement on the First Amendment guarantee of access to information. Censorship remains deeply unpopular across the state and across the political spectrum, and we hope that the district will listen to parents, teachers, students, and librarians who support the freedom to read.”
The list of challenged books includes 12 titles by Ellen Hopkins, 10 by Sarah J. Maas, and 3 by Rupi Kaur. It includes contemporary classics such as Sarah Gruen’s Water for Elephants and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, as well as 20th-century masterpieces like Richard Wright’s Native Son and Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
According to the records provided by the district, a single person filed all of the book challenges and nearly all of the books were challenged on a single day, May 27th, 2023. As part of the Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Material, this person indicated that they had read all 93 books herself.
All of the titles being challenged in Berkeley County are listed on BookLooks, a site commonly used by political interest groups like Moms for Liberty to disseminate talking points.
The ACLU-SC encourages parents to stay involved in the education of their children. Parents who object to a book’s content can follow established protocols at their district to exempt their children from reading it.
The ACLU-SC also encourages anyone interested in pushing back against this wave of censorship to join Freedom to Read SC and ProTruth SC. The ACLU-SC remains involved in the federal court case NAACP v. Pickens County School District, challenging a politically motivated book ban.
The challenged books list provided by the school district is below.
| Title | Author |
| A Court of Frost and Starlight | Sarah J. Maas |
| A Court of Mist and Fury | Sarah J. Maas |
| A Court of Silver Flames | Sarah J. Maas |
| A Court of Thorns and Roses | Sarah J. Maas |
| A Court of Wings and Ruin | Sarah J. Maas |
| A Lesson in Vengeance | Victoria Lee |
| After | Amy Efaw |
| All American Boys | Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely |
| All Boys Aren’t Blue * | George M. Johnson |
| All The Bright Places | Jennifer Niven |
| All Things We Do In the Dark | Saundra Mitchell |
| And They Lived | Steven Salvatore |
| Ask the Passengers | A.S. King |
| Beloved | Toni Morrison |
| Beyond Magenta | Susan Kuklin |
| Bumped | Megan McCafferty |
| Burned | Ellen Hopkins |
| Clockwork Princess | Cassandra Clare |
| Concrete Rose | Angie Thomas |
| Cool For the Summer | Dahlia Adler |
| Crank | Ellen Hopkins |
| Damsel | Elana Arnold |
| Dime | E.R. Frank |
| Eleanor and Park | Rainbow Rowell |
| Emergency Contact | Mary H.K. Choi |
| Empire of Storms | Sarah J. Maas |
| Fallout | Ellen Hopkins |
| Felix Ever After | Kacen Callender |
| Gabi, A Girl in Pieces | Isabel Quintero |
| Glass | Ellen Hopkins |
| Grit | Gillian French |
| Grown | Tiffany D. Jackson |
| Home Body | Rupi Kaur |
| House of Earth and Blood | Sarah J. Maas |
| House of Sky and Breath | Sarah J. Maas |
| I am not your Perfect Mexican Daughter | Erika L. Sanchez |
| Identical | Ellen Hopkins |
| I’ll Give you the Sun | Jandy Nelson |
| Impulse | Ellen Hopkins |
| Jay’s Gay Agenda | Jason June |
| Jesus Land | Julia Scheeres |
| Juliet Takes a Breath | Gabby Rivera |
| Kingdom of Ash | Sarah J. Maas |
| Last Night at the Telegraph Club | Malinda Lo |
| Like a Love Story | Abdi Nazemian |
| Looking for Alaska | John Green |
| Lucky | Alice Sebold |
| Me and Earl and the Dying Girl | Jesse Andrews |
| Milk and Honey | Rupi Kaur |
| Monday’s not coming | Tiffany D. Jackson |
| More Happy Than Not | Adam Silvera |
| Native Son | Richard Wright |
| Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe | Preston Norton |
| Nick and Charlie | Alice Oseman |
| Out of Darkness | Ashley Hope Perez |
| People Kill People | Ellen Hopkins |
| Push | Sapphire |
| Queen of Shadows | Sarah J. Maas |
| Ramona Blue | Julie Murphy |
| Red Hood | Elana K. Arnold |
| Red, White and Royal Blue | Casey McQuiston |
| Shine | Lauren Myracle |
| Shout | Lauire Halse Anderson |
| Slaughterhouse-Five | Kurt Vonnegut |
| Smoke | Ellen Hopkins |
| Sold | Patricia McCormick |
| Speak | Laurie Halse Anderson |
| Splendor | Elana K. Arnold |
| The Art of Racing In The Rain | Garth Stein |
| The Black Flamingo | Dean Atta |
| The Handsome Girl and Her Beautiful Boy | B.T. Gottfred |
| The Haters | Jesse Andrews |
| The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini |
| The Lovely Bones | Alice Sebold |
| The Midnight Lie | Marie Rutkoski |
| The Nowhere Girls | Amy Reed |
| The Opposite of Innocent | Sonya Sones |
| The Perks of Being a Wallflower | Stephen Chbosky |
| The Poet X | Elizabeth Acevedo |
| The Sun and her Flowers | Rupi Kaur |
| The Truth About Alice | Jennifer Mathieu |
| The Upside of Unrequited | Becky Albertalli |
| The You I’ve Never Known | Ellen Hopkins |
| Thirteen Reasons Why | Jay Asher |
| This One Summer | Mariko Tamaki |
| Tilt | Ellen Hopkins |
| Traffick | Ellen Hopkins |
| Tricks | Ellen Hopkins |
| Unravel Me | Tahereh Mafi |
| Water for Elephants | Sarah Gruen |
| What Girls Are Made of | Elana K. Arnold |
| Wicked: The life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West | Gregory Maguire |
| Yolk | Mary H.K. Choi |
* All Boys Aren’t Blue was included on a list of challenged books provided by the district. However, the Request for Reconsideration paperwork provided via the FOIA request did not include a challenge of that specific book.
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