It points (like an index finger) to a place (a page number), showing you the way. If all of this sounds obvious and unobjectionable, Duncan’s smart, playful book will encourage you to think again.

Between 2021 and 2023, PEN’s Index of School Book Bans clocked 5,894 instances of book bans in 41 states; in the 2023–24 school year, the number was close to double that.