{"id":65629,"date":"2025-11-26T07:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T07:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/65629\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T07:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T07:22:08","slug":"put-it-in-a-book-knows-the-value-in-seeing-yourself-in-the-books-you-read-the-austin-chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/65629\/","title":{"rendered":"Put It in a Book Knows the Value in Seeing Yourself in the Books You Read \u2022 The Austin Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the 2024-25 school year, Texas ranked No. 2 in the nation with over 1,700 book bans, according to free speech organization PEN America<\/a>. Many of these books have themes of race, gender, sexuality, and LGBTQIA. While these kinds of diverse stories are under attack in Texas, nonprofit Put It in a Book<\/a> is saving shelf space for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Katrina and Eric Brooks, owners of the independent bookstore Black Pearl Books, founded their business after noticing a lack of representation in bookstores and public libraries.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of that just came from me working and having to be very intentional about finding books for my kids,\u201d Katrina, who is Black, explained. \u201cAnd so that was kind of the spark, built out of a need to see ourselves represented.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2021, they launched the nonprofit with the goal of giving a voice to all marginalized groups and making diverse literature accessible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since the launch, Put It in a Book has collaborated with Austin ISD high schools through the nonprofit\u2019s Right to Read program. It allows students to participate in an on-campus banned book club, where Austin ISD selects the book and PIIAB provides copies free of charge. Recent selections include The Handmaid\u2019s Tale and Last Night at The Telegraph Club. PIIAB has also connected diverse authors with students at Title 1 schools through the H.O.S.T. (Honoring Our Students and Teachers) program.<\/p>\n

Karen Terry, school counselor at Bertha Sadler Means Young Women\u2019s Leadership Academy, coordinated an author visit with PIIAB this fall. Jasminne Mendez, a Dominican-American author, read aloud to students from her new book The Story of My Anger and spoke about her inspirations for writing. Each student was gifted a book copy from PIIAB.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Terry says the H.O.S.T. program has opened up a window of possibilities for students to think about in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to invite different authors to our campus that represent the student population,\u201d Terry said. \u201cAnd they serve as an inspiration for our girls to find their place in the world and to actually motivate them to be all that they can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katrina Brooks says her advocacy for literacy and inclusivity stems from seeing representation in magazines at a pivotal time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEbony, Jet \u2013 those were really popular magazines when I was coming up. That\u2019s where I saw representation,\u201d Brooks said. While the nonprofit has mainly focused on children\u2019s literacy, Brooks and the new executive director, Charley Rejsek, have goals to bridge a gap in elderly reading support.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do a lot with children in the schools, but that\u2019s another very important and vibrant part of the community at large, this generation of people who have paved the way for us to exist and do the things that we do,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This article appears in November 28 \u2022 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A note to readers:\u00a0Bold and uncensored,\u00a0The Austin Chronicle\u00a0has been Austin\u2019s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community\u2019s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the 2024-25 school year, Texas ranked No. 2 in the nation with over 1,700 book bans, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,34072,34073],"class_list":["post-65629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-black-pearl-books","tag-put-it-in-a-book"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}