Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb has been selected as the next selection in Chicago Today’s Banned Book Club. And Chicago Today hosts Cortney Hall and Matthew Rodrigues and American Library Association (ALA) Executive Director Tracie D. Hall—who selects the club's featured books—invite everyone to read and discuss the book with them during a live Facebook chat.
Gorman’s book, which features the poem that she read at President Biden’s inauguration in 2021, was placed on a restricted list at a South Florida elementary school in May after one parent’s complaint.
Gorman said in a May 23 statement that she wrote the poem “so that all young people could see themselves in a historical moment.” Tracie D. Hall echoes Gorman’s sentiments.
“This is a book to share, especially with the young people in our lives,” Hall said. “When Amanda wrote this poem … she herself was still a young woman at the beginning of her journey as a writer.”
The book will be discussed during a live chat on ALA’s Facebook page on September 28 at 2 p.m. CST. We encourage everyone to read Gorman’s book and join us all for the discussion!
The Banned Book Club, which began in early 2023, has expanded to additional NBC markets across the U.S. since its debut, with NBC Los Angeles’ California Live and NBC Boston’s Hub Today joining the efforts to help promote the right to read.
DOD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos M. Vazquez II. Wikipedia CC by 2.0.
