“We know from history that one way to control a nation is to control what its citizens read,” Picoult said in an Instagram video.

Jodi Picoult vote for the books this election season.

The bestselling author has teamed up with PEN Americaa nonprofit organization that advocates for writers and books, to encourage readers to think about book issues on Election Day.

In a Instagram Reel shared on October 28, Picoult, 58, says that his 2008 novel, Nineteen minutes was the most banned book during the 2023-2024 school year, in 98 school districts across the country. The book is about a school shooting, which Picoult said is “something that our children, unfortunately, don’t need a book to learn about.”

“In fact, hundreds of students have told me Nineteen minutes “They stopped them from committing a school shooting or showed them that they were not alone in feeling isolated,” she continues. “The book didn’t hurt them. It gave them tools to deal with an increasingly divided and different world.”

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“That’s what books do,” Picoult notes in the video. “They help kids see themselves in a different way. They help kids see the world in a different way.”

The author explains that the reason the book is generally banned is because of a “rape scene” and because it uses “anatomically correct words for the human body.”

“It’s not a gratuitous scene,” says Picoult. “It’s not salacious. Yet it has been challenged as porn.”

Book banners used pornography “as an excuse to ban over 10,000 books from public schools this past school year,” she continues, noting that many of these books are written by BIPOC and LGTBQ+ authors.

Related: Jodi Picoult has written nearly 30 books. Here’s Why His Most Recent Is ‘The One I Was Supposed To Write’ (Exclusive)

“And spoiler alert: it’s not porn,” adds Picoult, before explaining that laws have been passed in states across the United States to make it increasingly easier to ban books.

“We know from history that one way to control a nation is to control what its citizens read,” adds Picoult, telling her followers that she will “vote for books” in November.

According to the American Library AssociationFrom 2022 to 2023, there has been a 65% increase in titles targeted for censorship, with more than 4,000 titles listed for removal from school districts and libraries.

Related: In new memoir, librarian Amanda Jones recounts her fight against book bans: ‘I’m going to keep going’ (Exclusive)

Nineteen minutes, as Picoult explained in his post, focuses on a school shooting. “Sterling is an ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing happens, until its complacency is shattered by a school shooting,” reads the book’s synopsis.

“Josie Cormier, the daughter of the judge in the case, should be the state’s best witness, but she can’t remember what happened before her own eyes – or can she?”

“As the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to emerge, destroying the closest friendships and families,” the summary concludes.

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