Charlotte’s Web, the E.B. White children’s classic that is often a child’s first introduction to the deeper and intangible concepts of life, like the meaning of friendship and the sorrows of death, is pending approval from the Coppell Independent School District’s new Student Library Advisory Council (SLAC). The book, which has been a school library staple since it was first published in 1952, most likely already exists on Coppell school shelves and in its elementary classrooms, but because of a broad, new law that derails the typical school library book-buying process, a fresh copy of Charlotte’s Web now requires approval, and that won’t happen for several weeks.
Less than a month into the school year, Coppell ISD’s book approval list is already 37 pages long, filled with hundreds of titles just as innocent as Charlotte’s Web, and some with more challenging but crucial topics to inform older readers approaching voting age. Books like A Kid’s Book About Dyslexia for elementary schools, or Death By Whoopee Cushion for middle schools, or Same Sex Marriage: Obergefell v. Hodges for high schools, are stuck in a literary prison holding cell, waiting for approval by the SLAC that Coppell has willingly formed without being petitioned.
Senate Bill 13, filed by North Texas Sen. Angela Paxton and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in late June, strips librarians of their book stock autonomy and places the responsibility of bookshelf content approval in the hands of school boards. The law requires the boards to meet twice a year to individually approve each book requested by librarians, of which there may be thousands. The bill claimed to ensure “obscene” content is not found in libraries, regardless of existing laws that keep inappropriate materials out of public schools…