Book bans in Florida and Texas are at the center of the Emmy Award-winning documentary The Librarians. The film follows librarians confronting an escalating wave of censorship across the country, facing harassment, threats and laws that criminalize their work.
Florida ranks second in the nation for enacted book bans, behind only Texas, according to a new study by PEN America, a nonprofit focused on literary and human rights. During the 2025-26 school year, 3,212 books were removed from Florida schools, the study found. Texas removed more than 8,000.
Florida law allows challenges to books and instructional materials deemed sexually explicit, pornographic or age-inappropriate. The state Board of Education rejects the characterization of these removals as book bans, saying the state is simply removing sexually explicit materials from school shelves.
Academy Award-nominated, Peabody Award-winning director and producer Kim A. Snyder joined Helen Acevedo on WLRN's South Florida Roundup to discuss the documentary, which will be screened across Miami-Dade County in the coming days.
Snyder said the project began in the fall of 2021, when a state senator in Texas issued what became known as the "Krause List", a catalog of 850 books that school libraries were urged to remove.
"It was immediately apparent that these were books largely targeting authors of color, Black history, LGBTQ+ characters, and books that involved the Holocaust," Snyder said. Around that time, she learned about a group of librarians organizing under the name "Freedom Fighters." What started as a Texas story quickly became national, especially as Florida passed similar legislation.
READ MORE: PEN America: Nearly 12,000 school book bans in a year, a record high
Through the film, Snyder traces what she describes as a well-funded, coordinated effort tied to groups like Moms for Liberty and what she calls a "white Christian nationalist agenda."
"The bigger takeaway in the film is a takedown of public education," Snyder said.
She pointed to the case of a librarian named Suzette, a military veteran, who stood up at a school board meeting and asked: "How is the history of the KKK pornographic?" Snyder noted that many of the challenged books, including Toni Morrison's Beloved, are classics that explore difficult chapters of American history, including slavery and sexual assault.
The toll on librarians has been severe. In the film, a librarian named Martha recounts being called a "groomer" and a "pedophile" for wanting to keep books on shelves. "There is real trauma, and it doesn't go away in a linear way," Snyder said of sitting behind the camera as Martha spoke through tears. In Clay County, Florida, librarian Julie Miller was fired after asking why a book was being challenged.
Reverend Jeffrey Dove, a pastor and community advocate from Clay County, told the South Florida Roundup he wasn't looking to join the fight but was moved to act after seeing how Miller was treated.
Dove became a fierce defender of Miller, attending school board meetings and speaking up on her behalf.
"As a pastor, you have to have a moral compass," he said, invoking the legacy of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. "A lot of pastors and activists — we need to do more of that. We need to show up at these school board meetings to make sure these people on the school board and the superintendents are held accountable."
The Women's Fund of Miami is hosting a series of free screenings across Miami-Dade County next week. For more information on local screenings, visit https://thelibrariansfilm.com/
Listen above to the Oct. 16, 2026, interview with Kim A. Snyder and Reverend Jeffrey Dove on WLRN's South Florida Roundup or wherever you get your podcasts.
Copyright 2026 WLRN
