One of seven suspended books at Highland Park ISD — The Glass Castle – is back on the district’s approved book list.
District officials said an individual withdrew a challenge Wednesday to the nonfiction book.The Glass Castle will be taught in high school English classes in the spring.
Superintendent Dawson Orr and Highland Park High School Principal Walter Kelly sent an email Wednesday night to parents with an update about the seven books that are suspended from the approved book list, pending review by a committee of parents, teachers and students.
The number of challenged books, they noted in the email, has dropped to six.
Orr suspended the books last week after parents raised concerns about some of their mature themes and sex scenes. A new group of parents and students are fighting the book suspensions and an alumna started an online petition to protest them.
Last week, Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle, said she was heartbroken over her book’s suspension. Her memoir is about growing up in poverty with an alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother.
“My book has ugly elements to it, but it’s about hope and resilience, and I don’t know why that wouldn’t be an important message,” she told the Dallas Morning News.
Prior to the book suspensions, Walls had been chosen as keynote speaker for the district’s literary festival in February.
Six books remain suspended: The Art of Racing in the Rain; The Working Poor: Invisible in America; Siddhartha; The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian; An Abundance of Katherines; and Song of Solomon.
Three of the books, including The Glass Castle, were scheduled for use in English classes this school year. Orr said the suspended books are at the school’s library and can be read in students’ free time.