A parental rights group in Utah has created a Google map to show which schools allegedly hold books the group considers “explicit,” Facebook posts show.
Utah Parents United made the “explicit books” map, shared Monday, to show which schools purportedly contain such books, according to the organization’s Facebook page. The Google map shows where the books are allegedly located, along with whether or not the books have been challenged, removed or retained. (RELATED: Utah School District Reportedly Pulls Bible From Elementary, Junior High School Libraries Over ‘Inappropriate’ Material)
For example, “A Court of Frost and Starlight” by Sarah J. Maas was challenged in the Davis County School District in September 2022, according to the information on map. An individual in the same school district suggested in March that the Bible should be banned from school libraries, claiming the text is “pornographic.” The Bible was removed except from high schools, but was later retained when the school district board reversed its decision.
Book Looks, a reference guide to “objectionable material your child or young adult may be reading,” claimed in a document the book has “mild profanity; explicit sexual nudity; and obscene references to sexual activities.” The same document provides the text of the purported “objectionable content” in the book, listing a number of quotes from various pages throughout the text.
Book Looks describes itself as “concerned parents who have been frustrated by the lack of resource material for content-based information regarding books accessible to children and young adults,” according to its official website.
Another Maas book, Empire of Storms, is found in Utah elementary, junior high and high schools, according to the map. Book Looks suggested it also contains “explicit sexual activities; sexual nudity; violence; and profanity,” according to the group’s document.
“We have a new map we’re making for Utah that shows where a specific book is located in schools across Utah. In the other maps you click on the school to see what books that school has. This one allows users to click on a specific book and see which districts and schools still carry it,” Utah Parents United Curriculum Director, Brooke Stephens, wrote in the organization’s Facebook group, LaVerna in the Library.
Utah’s H.B. 374, which passed in 2022, prohibits “sensitive materials” in a public school and requires “parents who are reflective of a school’s community” to be involved in the decision-making process when determining whether or not a book contains such materials.
Stephens also shared a YouTube tutorial on how to use the map.
“Despite passing a law that requires schools to remove sexually explicit materials, we continue to find these books available to minors in libraries all across our state,” a spokesperson for Utah Parents United told the Daily Caller. “This map, showing only a fraction of the schools and districts, represents hundreds of hours of work but we will do whatever it takes to expose the districts who are not complying with the law.”
The spokesperson suggested children should not be “subjected to addictive pornographic stimulants” and that schools “should do better.”