Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush have joined the ranks of banned authors, thanks to a sweeping review that has led to the banning of some 1,500 books from a suburban school district nestled in the Texas Hill Country.
According to lists obtained through public information requests by the Texas Freedom to Read Project, the New Braunfels ISD has removed, restricted, or aged-up more than 600 books from its high schools, 800 books from middle schools, and about 60 titles from elementary school libraries since June 1, 2025. The former presidents join the esteemed company of authors banned in the district, including Herman Melville, Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare, Norman Mailer, Judy Blume, Homer, and Ayn Rand. Celebrity authors including Prince Harry, Tom Hanks, Britney Spears, Amy Poehler, Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy), and Sully Sullenberger have also had their stories removed from student access.
The sweeping review was undertaken to comply with Texas SB 13, a bill enacted last year that bans materials with ”indecent” or “profane” content from school libraries. At the start of the school year, New Braunfels Independent School District closed its secondary school libraries entirely, overcomplying with the law, but reopened them after public outcry. The district has said it is using AI to identify books for review.
The lists reveal a chaotic review process in the district, in which scores of books in public records have been marked with “Adult Tag,” “adult classics move up”, “Weeded: SB13,” “Re-Placement,” or “AP Lit” — all of which indicate a variety of decisions to remove, restrict or age-up the books in question. According to the Texas Freedom to Read Project, the district appears to be targeting any book originally written for adult audiences. As most classic novels, memoirs, and biographies are categorized for a general or “adult” readership, that appears to be leading to many of the bans.
In addition to the hundreds of books on these lists, 450 books are publicly listed as “under review” on the district’s website, meaning these have been removed indefinitely from students’ access while the review progresses. Many books remain under review, with decisions indicated for some books that they are “SB 13 non-compliant,” “SB 13 compliant,” or “Move to 9-12.” Among the books that have been marked as non-compliant include works by authors David Sedaris, Sandra Cisneros, Ocean Vuong, R.F. Kuang, and Sally Rooney. Among the books remaining under review are works by actor Matthew McConaughey, singer-songwriter Halsey, actress Jeanette McCurdy, poet Walt Whitman, and novels by Toni Morrison, Laurie Halse Anderson, Gillian Flynn, Susan Choi, and J.K. Rowling, among many others.
“This overly aggressive removal of books – based on a vague law that should never have passed in the first place – is undermining education and the freedom to read in Texas,” said Jonathan Friedman, PEN America Sy Syms managing director of U.S. free expression programs.
“What does it mean for a high school student living in the Texas Hill Country that they are being barred from accessing the story of a U.S. president who grew up in their own state, reflecting on his father — another Texan who also became president? What are we doing to our young people when we narrow their horizons? If we teach them fear of stories, we teach them fear of thought itself — and that is a loss no free society can afford.”
Laney Hawes, parent and one of the co-founders of Texas Freedom to Read Project agrees. “The latest slate of book bans from SB13 confirms what many Texas parents have been saying for years: the culture wars are ruining our kids’ education. Texas has produced world class authors, scientists, leaders; it’s as though our state legislators want to put that in jeopardy. Frankly, it’s embarrassing for our state to be telling my children and the rest of the rising generation of 5.5 million Texas public school students they can’t read classic books, or true biographies of our country’s athletes, actors, presidents in our schools. Our school boards and state leaders need to wake up and stop trying to suppress our freedom.”
An astonishing number of memoirs and biographies have been banned permanently or banned pending investigation under one of the district’s review processes, including:
- A Promised Land, by Barack Obama
- Becoming and The Light We Carry, by Michelle Obama
- 41: A Portrait of My Father by George W. Bush
- My Life, by Bill Clinton
- I Am Malala, by Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai
- Spare, by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
- Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow
- Sully: My Search for What Really Matters, by pilot Chesley Sullenberger
- The Soul of a Butterfly, by Muhammad Ali
- Burn Book, by journalist Kara Swisher
- Born a Crime, by comedian Trevor Noah
- Bossypants, by comedian Tina Fey
- Endurance, by astronaut Scott Kelly
- Just Add Water, by swimmer Katie Ledecky
- One Life, by soccer star Megan Rapinoe
- Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, by actor Matthew Perry
- Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir, by Eddie Huang
- Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden
- Happy, Happy, Happy, by Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson
- Educated, by PEN America board member Tara Westover
- Girl, Wash Your Face, by self-help guru Rachel Hollis
- The Woman in Me, by pop star Britney Spears
- Capital Gaines, by home improvement star Chip Gaines
- Oprah: A Biography, by Kitty Kelley
- LeBron, Inc.: The Making of a Billion-Dollar Athlete, by Brian Windhorst
- Messi, by Luca Caioli
- Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight, by Jay Barbree
- I’m Glad My Mom Died, by actor Jennette McCurdy
- Why We Suck, by comedian Denis Leary
- To Hell and Back, by Audie Murphy, the most decorated combat soldier of World War II
- We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story, by actor Simu Liu
- Just As I Am: A Memoir, by Cicely Tyson
- Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, by author Cheryl Strayed
- This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey, by U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar
- The Good Neighbor: The Life And Work Of Fred Rogers, by Maxwell King
- Open: An Autobiography, by tennis legend Andre Agassi
- My Story, by child safety activist Elizabeth Smart
- An Unlikely Journey: Waking Up From my American Dream, by former San Antonio Mayor and cabinet member Julian Castro
Also removed for being too “adult” were Marvel’s Greatest Comics: 100 Comics That Built a Universe, Killing Lincoln by conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly, Star Wars Light of the Jedi, and Guinness World Records 2019 and 2024.
A slew of classic novels and plays pepper the lists of books swept up in the district’s reviews — The Three Musketeers, A Streetcar Named Desire, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Murder On the Orient Express. Contemporary novels are also among those banned, including Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, There, There by Tommy Orange, The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris, and popular books by Margaret Atwood, Jodi Picoult, John Grisham, Michael Connelly, Stephen King, James Patterson, David Baldacci, John and Hank Green, Pat Conroy, and Nicholas Sparks.
According to the Texas Freedom to Read Project, a subset of classic books marked as ‘AP Lit,’ appears to indicate an exemption from being removed, and that they have been placed under restriction for some high school students, with the rationale that they are used in AP literature classes. These include Billy Bud by Herman Melville, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Odyssey, by Homer.
Classics in middle school libraries, including Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, were moved up to high schools. And in elementary schools a wide range of books have been impacted, including The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, StarTalk by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dark Sky Rising by Henry Louis Gates, and five middle grade books by Carl Hiaasen. Picture books In the Night Kitchen, the Maurice Sendak classic that features nudity, and When Aidan Became a Brother, by Kyle Lukoff, which includes a trans character, are both listed as “Weeded: SB13.”
The district school board is meeting on March 16 and will discuss its library materials policy. Parents in the district can attend the meeting or email the board. For more information and ways to take action, check out this post by Texas Freedom to Read Project and the free guide, Turning the Page: An Advocate’s Guide to the Freedom to Read.
PEN America defines a school book ban as any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental officials, that leads to a book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished. Diminished access is a form of censorship and has educational implications that extend beyond a title’s removal.
School book bans take varied forms, and can include prohibitions on books in libraries or classrooms, as well as a range of other restrictions, some of which may be temporary. For example, if a book that was previously available to all now requires parental permission, or is restricted to a higher grade level than educators initially determined, that is a ban. In some cases, books are removed from shelves for “review,” but not returned for weeks or months. If students cannot access the book, that is a ban.
