Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared war on books, and the battle over kids’ freedom to read is under way at schools across the state. What’s on the chopping block—or bonfire—this time? For southeast Florida’s Martin County, it’s The Storyteller, a novel about the unlikely relationship between the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and an aging S.S. officer, as well as nearly 20 other books by bestselling author Jodi Picoult. “Banning ‘The Storyteller’ is shocking, as it is about the Holocaust and has never been banned before,” Picoult said in an email to The Washington Post, calling book bans a “breach of freedom of speech and freedom of information.” According to Picoult, most of her books have nary a kiss in them but do include “gay characters, and issues like racism, disability, abortion rights, gun control, and other topics that might make a kid think differently from their parents.” In their justification for the bans, officials from the heavily Republican county cite a mind-bogglingly vague directive from the Florida Department of Education that tells educators to ban any book they wouldn’t feel “comfortable reading aloud.”
