(KRON) – Authors Joanna Ho and Carolyn Cossin-Pritchard left Country Club Elementary minutes before their scheduled presentation after they were asked not to discuss the book ban by the San Ramon Valley Unified School District.
The authors were on a school tour in the Bay Area to promote their book, The Day the Books Disappeared, which deals with book bans. They were scheduled to speak at the school on October 17, but the principal asked them to avoid discussing certain parts of the book.
“Book bans are real, they happen everywhere, and they happen in California,” said Carolyn Cossin-Pritchard, co-author of the book.
“Caroline was so out of line with our integrity, we wouldn’t change our presentation if we were giving the presentation,” said Joanna Ho.
The San Ramon Valley Unified School District issued a statement outlining their concerns that parts of the presentation were inappropriate for younger students, specifically those in transitional kindergarten to third grade, ages 4 to 9. They stated that the book’s message of kindness, empathy, and understanding was overshadowed by the focus on book bans, which they felt extended beyond the developmental level of younger students.
The district also explained that it reached out to the organization that coordinates the author’s visits to request modifications to the presentation for younger audiences. When they received no response, they made the same request directly to the authors upon their arrival at the school. The authors chose to leave rather than modify their presentation.
Despite the district’s concerns, Cousin Pritchard said they received positive feedback from thousands of students across the country, noting the powerful insights and hopeful reactions from children when engaging with the book’s story.
Joanna Ho explained that the book discusses reasons why books might be banned, such as uncomfortable historical facts, race or racism, and diverse family structures. She stressed the importance of highlighting such stories to increase awareness and intentionality in communities.
All facts contained in this report were collected by journalists working forCrohn4. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat the broadcast transcript into a news article for our website. This report was edited and verified by KRON4 staff before deployment.