Industry & Advocacy News

Texas County Restores Indigenous Account to Nonfiction Collection

Book Banning Free Speech

December 6, 2024

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In October, Montgomery County, Texas, removed the book Colonization and the Wampanoag Story by Linda Coombs, a critically acclaimed nonfiction book, from the Juvenile Nonfiction collection in its public libraries and wrongfully re-categorized the book as Juvenile Fiction instead. The Authors Guild, along with Penguin Random House and a number of other organizations including the American Indian Library Association and American Indians in Children’s Literature, wrote a letter of protest on October 16, 2024. As the letter stated, the book is

“a carefully researched, fact-based account of the Indigenous perspective of the tribes of the New England area on the impacts of European colonization. Moving it to the fiction section communicates distrust of material that reflects the truths of our American history. It diminishes the legitimacy of [the author’s] perspective as a member of the Wampanoag Tribe and Indigenous educators who recommend its use.”

In making this mischaracterization, the county violated its own policies, which authorized the removal or reassignment of books but not overturning fact-based characterization decisions such as moving a nonfiction book to the fiction section. Recharacterizing historical fact as “fiction” is another way of censoring already marginalized voices. This kind of approach is no better than simply removing a book—and is in some ways potentially even more dangerous, since casting historical facts that may not agree with a widespread national narrative as “fiction” can put into question other historical facts as well.

Fortunately, Montgomery County has since reversed its decision and restored the book to its proper place in Juvenile Nonfiction. We hope there will be no similar efforts to “recharacterize” a people’s history.

Read our letter here (PDF).