After Academy District 20 removed Brian Katcher’s Almost Perfect from district school-library collections, Katcher recorded this response.
Content note: This video discusses suicide and includes reader accounts involving transgender identity, marginalization, and book challenges.
What Katcher Says
Katcher reads messages from readers who describe how Almost Perfect affected their lives, helped them feel represented, and changed how they understood themselves and other people. He also reads excerpts from professional reviews and discusses the book’s 2011 Stonewall Book Award.
He closes by asking officials not to remove the book from library shelves. Parents may decide that their own children should not read a particular book, he says, but that decision should remain with each student and family rather than being imposed on everyone.
Related Coverage
For the documented D20 context, read Susan Payne’s Almost Perfect Fearmongering Was Built on an Omission.