Dearborn Public Schools recently announced the results of some book discrepancies filed by a parent a few months ago.

“We are pleased with the results of the book challenge as we want to ensure that our libraries have content that is appropriate for our students and that they do not provide material with gratuitous or unnecessarily graphic content,” said Adam Martin, Dearborn Public Schools Executive Director of student achievement for the Fordson Feeder Track.

Earlier this week, parents within the Detroit suburb of Dearborn voiced their concerns about sexually explicit content in the district’s school libraries at a Monday board meeting. A local mother even went ahead and read the explicit contents from the book called “Flamer” by Mike Curato.

“We know our rights as parents, and we know that, right now, our rights are being infringed upon,” the mother said to the board.
She opposed the claim that the book should return to the shelf in Dearborn schools citing that she would pay the library fine in consequence.

“You can reorder it or whatever you’re going to do,” she told board members.

Flamer, a novel by Mike Curato, erupted a volcano of criticism for its sexually explicit content.

Board members later cut the mother’s reading short to call up the next speaker, but she won a round of applause from the audience for her bold stance against the arguably inappropriate material.

The book “Flamer” has sparked outrage in other communities across the U.S. as well, including Oklahoma, where the state Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister called for the book to be banned from all public schools.

“This is inappropriate, sexually explicit material. It’s pornography that does not belong in any public school library,” Hofmeister said, according to KFOR News in Oklahoma City.

“We’ve reached out to Tulsa Public Schools and are calling for the books to be removed immediately,” she said.

Dearborn Public Schools reported that that “Flamer” is not included in classroom instruction and sent a press release with details about the district’s current book review process.

However, Flamer will still remain in libraries at the high school level even though it was not part of the list.

The district further took some action to remove some books considered to be inappropriate for students.

Two books that were shelved out of all district libraries were “Push” by Sapphire and “Red, White and Royal Blue” by Casey McQuiston.

But “Eleanor and Park” by Rainbow Rowell and Curato’s “Flamer” have been limited to high school libraries.

“The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold, the other book which didn’t quite sit well with the majority of the parents was also passed as appropriate for high school audiences and will remain on the shelves.

While the parents’ efforts in a bid to remove inappropriate books from the local libraries did bear some fruit, the limited availability of other books like Flamer and Lovely Bones they say still pose a threat to their children.