Beaufort County Schools vote to return six more books to school library shelves

Beaufort County School Board’s independent book review committees voted Wednesday night to return six more books to Beaufort County School libraries. Each of the six books had been placed on a review list of 97 total books at the request of a group of parents headed by Joseph Castagnino.

It has taken nearly 11 months to review 74 of the nearly 100 books removed from shelves in October of last year. Of those 74, four were recommended to be off-limits to students and those include, “The Haters” by Jesse Andrews, “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult, “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover and “Forever for a Year” by B.T. Gottfried.

Wednesday’s traunch of six titles Includes Empire of Storms, the fifth book in Sarah Maas’ Throne of Glass series. The previous four installments were returned to shelves in previous decisions.

The six books returning to shelves after Wednesday night’s ruling are:

Empire of Storms by Sarah Maas — returned to grades 9-12, previously in grades 9-12

Damsel by Elana Arnold — returned to grades 9-12, previously in grades 9-12

Identical by Ellen Hopkins — returned to grades 9-12, previously in grades 9-12

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli — returned to grades 9-12, previously in grades 9-12

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood — returned for grades 9-12, previously in grades 9-12

Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy —returned to grades 9-12, previously in grades 9-12

The book review committees now have 23 books remaining to review and there is no firm timetable for the completion of the project.