By Delayna Earley
The Island News
Six more books are being returned to the library shelves following the September book review committee meeting on Sept. 13, at Okatie Elementary School.
Two of the six books, Damsel by Elana Arnold and Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli have been returned to library circulation without any additional stipulations or restrictions.
The other four books, Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas, Identical by Ellen Hopkins, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy, have all been returned to library circulation for Grades 9 through 12 only.
Identical was originally reviewed in May but was returned to the review process after a split vote during the May review committee meeting.
To date, 74 of the 97 books that were removed from Beaufort County School District (BCSD) library shelves have been reviewed, and of those, only four have been removed following their review – Forever for a Year by B.T. Gottfried, Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover and The Haters by Jesse Andrews.
Books removed during the review process will be removed from circulation for five years, and at that time they will be re-reviewed to see if they can be returned to BCSD libraries.
It is currently unclear how long it will take to review the last 23 books, but it is expected that the review process will at least go into mid to late fall.
The 97 challenged books were originally pulled from shelves to be reviewed in October 2022 after a group of individuals requested to have the materials removed from school libraries and reviewed.
Delayna Earley lives in Beaufort with her husband, two children and Jack Russell. She formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She joined The Island News in 2022. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
Delayna Earley, The Island News, Beaufort, SC, South Carolina, Port Royal, Ladys Island, Lowcountry
