by Kaycee Carter
On February 4, teachers in the McPherson USD 418 school district received an email requesting that they remove all copies of “Flight of the Puffin” by Ann Braden from their classrooms. Specifically, the email stated, “this book should remain in adult hands until further feedback.” This is the first time a book has been abruptly removed from the curriculum in McPherson, Kansas, but the action represents a growing trend nationwide. According to PEN America, a nonprofit organization that fights for the “freedom to write,” a record of 10,046 books were banned in schools across the country in the 2024-2025 school year. Many of these books are challenged and removed because they are deemed inappropriate for children due to LGBTQ+ content, themes of racism, or exploration of sexuality.
The censorship of “Flight of the Puffin” by Ann Braden fits with this theme. It is important to note that the book does not contain any sexually explicit content, it simply includes a nonbinary character. And, ironically, the main themes include kindness and accepting and learning from those who are different from us.
Dr. Becki Bowman, Professor of Communication at McPherson College and member of the McPherson Public Library board, shared her insight on the recent ban in an interview. Bowman’s personal view is that “everyone needs to see themselves in books.” She shared, “I think when we start pulling books because of the kinds of characters [and] the kinds of themes that are in them, we are not acknowledging that those people exist in society. It’s a way of sort of trying to erase them.”
Bowman also believes that reading is one of the best ways for students to learn about people who are different than them. She explained, “When we take [books] away, I just think it makes us less educated, less aware, less empathetic as a society, and it disconnects us.” In Bowman’s view, most book bans occur because people are afraid of things (or people) that they do not understand. There is perhaps an irrational fear that reading about a situation where a person is different will somehow infect the reader. Bowman stated, “I do not believe that reading about a character who is different than you is going to make you be a certain way.”
Bowman’s opinion is especially valuable because she has a fourth-grade daughter and the district removed “Flight of the Puffin” from fourth and fifth grade classrooms. The students in this classroom, and others across the school district, were supposed to read “Flight of the Puffin” so they could be prepared to meet Ann Braden during the second week of March. However, according to an email sent to teachers in the district, “Flight of the Puffin” was removed due to concerns from parents and the school-sponsored author visit was cancelled. Not only was the read-aloud halted, but the emails suggest that the book was also confiscated from classrooms. Bowman expressed, “It is very important to understand that somebody in the district okayed this book for the curriculum. It was brought in, it was deemed appropriate and acceptable, and when a parent complained, it was then pulled.” Bowman is most concerned with the process of how the book was removed.
The USD 418 School Board policy on curriculum approval states, “The superintendent shall develop selection procedures…which shall include a review of available material by appropriate staff members.” And, if there is a challenge to said materials, the policy states that a complaint can be submitted: “If the board chooses to consider the request, it shall forward all appropriate written materials to a review committee.” The review committee would then “examine and evaluate the material as a whole; consider the district’s policy, procedures, and philosophy…and form opinions based upon the selection criteria.”
In the case of “Flight of the Puffin,” teachers reported emails from admin which state that there was no review committee formed before the book was pulled from the curriculum. For example, one administrator’s email states, “I have carefully reviewed the book and determined that it is not approved for our curriculum and is not considered age-appropriate at the elementary level.” Notice that the language used is “I” and not “we.” Additionally, the book was pulled within a matter of hours, which would also suggest that no review committee was formed.
In an exclusive interview with the Spectator, Ann Braden, the author of “Flight of the Puffin,” shared that the increase in book bans disappoints her because she believes that children deserve access to a wide variety of literature. Braden thinks it is incredibly ironic that the book was censored in McPherson because “it is a book about spreading kindness and empathy and the entire point of the book is about how these four kids that seem very different from each other on the surface are actually really connected.”
Braden shares Bowman’s frustration with censorship, however, she works hard to overcome these setbacks. Braden explained that USD 418’s removal of the book inspires her writing even more. “I feel like I just have to keep writing books and keep telling the truth about the connections that we all have within ourselves, even if people don’t want to feel as connected to other people as I think we are. And it means that it’s harder to be an author for sure, but I am not going to stop writing for kids.”
