Kaylie Hitz, a sophomore at West Bend West High School, was thrilled to learn that she could pick a Pulitzer Prize winner for a book club novel, especially because that book was unavailable last year.
Both “The Color Purple” and “The Glass Castle” were popular reads in honors literature classes until the West Bend School District removed them from the list of choices for book clubs. However, WBHS English teachers saw value in these narratives and did what they could to bring them back. Collaborating with building literary specialist Leslie Delain as well as the district’s curriculum committee and eventually the school board, the teachers initiated a district process that ended with these titles being reinstated for the current school year.
In September 2023, the district removed “The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls from the list of options in Honors English I due to sexual content. Immediately upon learning that she would no longer be able to offer “The Glass Castle” to her students, West English teacher Kristen Becker began to act, trying to have it reinstated for the next school year, feeling as though there was a “real hole left in the unit.”
However, due to a miscommunication, the book was never reviewed by the curriculum committee, and the class would have to go without the title for yet another school year. In the spring of 2025, Becker tried yet again to have “The Glass Castle” reinstated. She found that justifying the passages once deemed as inappropriate for a learning setting was a bigger challenge than it would seem due to the subjectivity of the school board’s guidelines.
“What constitutes ‘graphic violence’ to one person may not be the same for someone else,” Becker said. “What constitutes ‘some’ inappropriate language is debatable. That leaves a lot of gray areas.”
Come September 2024, Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” met a similar fate, and was removed from the list of options for Honors English II book clubs. West English teacher Danielle Schumacher and East English teacher Eric Beltmann joined Becker in her advocacy for the reinstatement of a title that each teacher felt provided true value to their courses.
Schumacher felt as though “The Color Purple,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning story that follows the struggles of an impoverished, uneducated black woman in rural Georgia, was not a novel her students could afford to lose.
“As a former student of West Bend East, I’ll admit that I was not as knowledgeable about other cultures,” Schumacher said. “Our world is so diverse, and the more we know about one another, the more we can converse and understand the ‘other’.”
Along with the actions of the determined teachers, collaborative efforts with building literary specialist Leslie Delain played a vital role in the overall success of these endeavors. Working with both the English team and the curriculum committee, Delain provided answers to questions asked by the committee regarding the books along with consulting with the teachers in order to support their needs for their teaching standards.
“We have an amazing English team here at the high school,” Delain said. “Their hard work demonstrates to the community their dedication, knowledge and skills, and the books they choose align well with their unit themes and learning outcomes. Accepting more books allows them to offer a wider range of literature to their students.”
The months-long review process involved identifying passages to be examined, vetting those passages by applying the district-mandated content “test,” providing rationales for why the titles are effective tools for teaching the intended learning standards, and considering the cultural and literary significance of each work. Along the way, the books were vetted by various district personnel in multiple meetings that led to an official school board vote in July. The board voted 5-1 in favor of returning them to the list of options for book club.
These books are simply options for students from a manifold list of book club choices and parent permission is required.
As appreciative as they were, English teachers were not the only people at WBHS that were happy to have these titles back. In September, Hitz filled out her selection form and wrote “Please!!” next to her top choice, “The Color Purple.”
“I’ve always loved books about women’s struggles, especially in the past,” Hitz said. “I can tell it’s a book that will keep me interested and excited to learn.”
Like Hitz, West sophomore Henna Ramani and East sophomore Avery Buss are currently reading “The Color Purple” in Honors English II. Their book clubs met for the first time today.
“It seems like a ‘powerful’ book that will keep me very intrigued,” Ramani said. “I feel like I won’t get tired of this book and I will be able to critically think about it. It is a story that explores female empowerment, and that caught my attention.”
Buss appreciates the efforts put in by the district to make it possible for herself and other students to read the novel.
“It is important that teachers are advocating for these books to be taught because it allows students to access new knowledge and perspective on the world,” Buss said. “It is critical that we shed light on these topics so they do not go unnoticed and so we can help those affected.”
Although there are other titles teachers would like to return to classrooms–Schumacher specifically gave a shout-out to Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner”–they are grateful for the collaborative efforts between the English department, the curriculum committee and the school board. They believe students will benefit from the decision to reinstate these two books.
“Students learn empathy from literature,” Becker said. “They learn life lessons from literature. They learn how to be good human beings from literature.”
(Top image, from left to right: Avery Buss, Faith Van Beek and Emersen Stauske discuss Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” today during a book club meeting in Honors English II.)
The West Bend Current 
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