She challenges one school book a week. She says she'll never stop.

[In It to Win It]

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As of February, Jennifer Petersen had challenged 73 school books. (Julia Nikhinson for The Washington Post)


Jennifer Petersen keeps 73 school books she detests in her basement.

She ordered most from Amazon. In the last year, she read each one. She highlighted and typed up excerpts from more than 1,300 pages — of the 24,000-plus pages she read — that she says depict sexual acts. Then she filed challenges against 71 of the books with Spotsylvania County Public Schools, the Virginia district where one of her children is a student and the other is a recent graduate. (Two books were removed before she could challenge them.)

Across 434 pages of challenges — longer than many of the books she objected to — Petersen offered variations on a theme.

“This book reads like a how to guide for raping teens,” she wrote of one.

“The book normalizes teen sex and ... glorifies and incites teens to have sex,” she wrote of another.

“What is the fascination,” she asked of a third, “with so many of these books containing detailed sexual content?”

Petersen, 48, is part of a small army of book objectors nationwide. School book challenges reached historic highs in America in 2021 and 2022, according to the American Library Association. And just a handful of people are driving those records. A Washington Post analysis of thousands of challenges nationwide found that 60 percent of all challenges in the 2021-2022 school year came from 11 adults, each of whom objected to dozens — sometimes close to 100 — of books in their districts.

Petersen is one of these serial filers, whose actions have riven her community, earning her fervent admiration and criticism.

[Irish_Dem]

1. She is the one who is obsessed with teen sex.

Hmmmm.....

[Recycle_Guru]

2. would love to be her kid.

NOT!

[budkin]

3. She has serious mental issues

She needs therapy BADLY.

[sakabatou]

4. O NOES! Not sex!

Good god...