Rock Banned Book Club: "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez

Co-presented with the Prince George's County Office of Human Rights | Held in the Meeting Room

PGCMLS and PGCOHR host a monthly book club to explore the top 10 challenged books of 2022. This month's discussion features "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez.

About the Book

A 2016 Michael L. Printz Honoree "This is East Texas, and there's lines. Lines you cross, lines you don't cross. That clear?" New London, Texas. 1937. Naomi Vargas and Wash Fuller know about the lines in East Texas as well as anyone. They know the signs that mark them. They know the people who enforce them. But sometimes the attraction between two people is so powerful it breaks through even the most entrenched color lines. And the consequences can be explosive. Ashley Hope Pérez takes the facts of the 1937 New London school explosion—the worst school disaster in American history—as a backdrop for a riveting novel about segregation, love, family, and the forces that destroy people. (Source: The Publisher)

Find the book in our collection: Book | Ebook 

About Ashley Hope Pérez

Ashley Hope Pérez grew up in Texas and taught high school in Houston before pursuing a PhD in comparative literature. She is now Assistant Professor & Undergraduate Studies Chair at The Ohio State University and spends most of her time reading, writing, and teaching on topics from global youth narratives to Latin American and Latina/o fiction. She is the author of "The Knife and the Butterfly" and "What Can't Wait," which was included on the American Library Association's Best Fiction for Young Adults list in 2012.

Ashley Hope Pérez is interested in the ethical implications of how we tell, read, mediate, and interpret narratives. Her forthcoming book Deformative Fictions: Narrative Ethics and Cruelty in Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature explores how difficult works of fiction disrupt readers’ attempts to make sense of narrated cruelty, what we can do in response, and how these uncomfortable encounters matter for our understanding of narrative ethics. As one of the most frequently banned writers in the United States since 2021, she has used her insights as a literary scholar, novelist, and educator to advocate for public school students and their right to experience diverse literature as a space for learning, discovery, and growth. 

January 10, 2024 - "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Perez
February 14, 2024 - "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison 
March 13, 2024 - "A Court of Mist and Fury" by Sarah J. Maas
April 10, 2024 - "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" by Jesse Andrews
May 8, 2024 - "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky
June 12, 2024 - "This Book is Gay" by Juno Dawson