{Guest Blog Post by Rachael Welsh} In May of this year, several newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer, published a list of books to read over the summer. While this would normally be an eventful article, a list of books for vacations and poolside reading, there was a problem with this list: ten of the fifteen books weren’t real. 

No - this is not the latest satirical headline at The Onion. This is reality for the 49,000+ students who attend Lamar Consolidated ISD schools.

A public information request filed by Texas Freedom to Read Project confirmed that LCISD removed over 700 books from classrooms and school libraries at the start of the 2025-2026 school year.