When award-winning author and illustrator Jerry Craft learned last October that his virtual visit to a school in Katy, Texas, was canceled and his popular book New Kid had been removed from the library’s shelves, he was shocked. A mom had complained that his humorous graphic novel—about his childhood experience as a Black student attending a mostly white school—gives students a distorted view of race.

“I couldn’t imagine what someone would find in it that was offensive,” says Craft, whose book won the Newbery Medal and a Coretta Scott King Book Award. But some 400 people had signed a petition supporting the actions. After a 10-day review from the school district, his visit was rescheduled and the book put