A woman in Katy, Texas, filed a criminal complaint over the book Flamer, Mike Curato’s award-winning graphic novel about a queer boy coming to terms with his identity, the Houston Chronicle reports.
Following the woman’s complaint, an officer with the school district’s police department temporarily checked out the book from a high school library. The officer then met with a school district official and concluded that the book had been ruled appropriate for high school students to read.
Flamer, published in 2020 by Henry Holt, won critical acclaim and a host of awards, including a Lambda Literary Award and a Massachusetts Book Award. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus wrote of the novel, “This is a story that will be read and reread, and for some, it will be the defining book of their adolescence.”
The woman who filed the complaint about the book claimed its inclusion in the high school library ran afoul of a Texas law that prohibits “harmful material”—that which “appeals to the prurient interest,” is “patently offensive,” and lacks “redeeming social value”—from being provided to minors. She said she plans to supply a copy of the police report to the Texas Rangers, the statewide law enforcement agency.
Flamer is one of more than 40 books recently pulled from shelves in the Keller Independent School District, also in Texas.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
