Author: Joey deVilla

According to the American Library Association, last year books bans and attempted book bans hit “the highest levels ever documented,” and Florida “led” the nation in the push to either remove or restrict access to certain books.

To counter this, Firestorm Books, who describe themselves as a radical bookstore co-operative & community event space in Asheville, NC, is giving away 22,500 books rescued from the public schools in Florida’s Duval County (Jacksonville and surrounding areas).

You can request from two different sets of books aimed at different age groups:

• Six picture books for kids age 4 – 8
• Six chapter books for kids age 8 – 12

Find out more and request your free books here!

What sort of books were banned?

For starters, there’s Grace Lin’s Dim Sum for Everyone:

It was banned because Florida has a ban on the discussion of race in schools. DeSantis is such a snowflake.

Another book banned in Duval County: Sonia Sotomayor: I’ll Be the Judge of That!:

This is particularly strange because this is a book about a current Supreme Court Justice. One gets the feeling that no such challenge would ever be issued against a book about a laughably less-qualified judge like Amy Coney Barrett.

Here’s another banned book: Nya’s Long Walk:

Here’s what the book’s about:

Young Nya takes little sister Akeer along on the two-hour walk to fetch water for the family. But Akeer becomes too ill to walk, and Nya faces the impossible: her sister and the full water vessel together are too heavy to carry.

As she struggles, she discovers that if she manages to take one step, then another, she can reach home and Mama’s care.

Bold, impressionistic paintings by Caldecott and Coretta Scott King Honor winner Brian Pinkney evoke the dry, barren landscape and the tenderness between the two sisters.

An afterword discusses the process of providing clean water in South Sudan to reduce waterborne illness.

You get one guess as to why this book was banned.

Sam! is about a transgender boy and his family, so of course it got banned:

Want to know more about the books that have been banned from schools and libraries in Florida? Here’s a list compiled by PEN America.