Maryland’s State Board of Education reversed a local book ban for the first time under the state’s Freedom to Read Act, allowing an LGBTQ+ title to be returned to middle and high school shelves in one district.

As The Baltimore Banner and other outlets report, the state board’s Tuesday decision comes after the Harford County school board banned author Mike Curato’s semi-autobiographical young adult graphic novel Flamer last summer. The 2020 book details a teenage boy’s experience of being bullied for being gay and of experiencing his first crush at a Boy Scouts summer camp in 1995.

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Someone tried to ban a book because it supports the “ideology” of coming out. They got shut down.

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According to the American Library Association, Flamer was among the five most challenged or banned books in the country in 2022 and 2023, and among the top 10 last year. In addition to Harford County, in 2025 the book has been banned in school districts in Oregon and Alberta, Canada.

According to the Banner, a formal request to have Flamer removed from Harford County schools was filed in November 2024 by a parent who argued that the book does not “meet the values of the community” and “plants seeds in the heads of children that not only are trying to find themselves but could also be experiencing mental health challenges.”

As CBS News notes, during a sold-out discussion of the book in Harford County last month, Curato acknowledged that Flamer, which is recommended for readers 14 and older, “is about suicidal ideation and prevention.”

“That’s why I made this book, because I know that there are kids out there right now who are going through exactly what I went through in 1995,” the author said.

Maryland’s 2024 Freedom to Read Act requires school districts to develop their own protocols for reviewing books in their library systems and stipulates that materials can’t be excluded from libraries “because of the origin, background, or views of a person who created the material” or “because of a partisan, ideological or religious disapproval,” and that books must remain available for students during the review process.

Per Harford County’s procedures, parents can appeal the county review committee’s decision regarding challenged books to the district’s school board, so while the review committee voted to keep Flamer in middle and high schools and the district’s superintendent approved that decision, in June, the Harford County school board voted to ban the book. The board cited the review committee’s alleged failure to “critically evaluate the book on its age appropriateness, its extensive profanity, sexual situations, and demanding observations of females.” According to CBS News, Flamer was the first book to be banned under Harford County’s new book challenge process.  

However, the fact that the school board’s vote took place during a closed-door meeting without community input drew criticism. Local progressive organization Together We Will Harford County appealed the decision to the State Board of Education. As the Banner notes, Maryland State Department of Education regulations stipulate that the State Board can overrule local board decisions if they are “arbitrary, unreasonable, or illegal.”

“We reverse the decision of the local board and find that the local Superintendent’s decision to retain Flamer in HCPS secondary school libraries stands,” the Maryland Board of Education’s November 4 decision read, according to the Banner. The state board also noted that the Harford County school board did not specify how the review committee had failed in its evaluation of the book, and advised the district to update its book challenge procedure to “ensure members of the HCPS community have notice and an opportunity to participate in appeals of decisions regarding objections to school library materials.”

According to the Banner, Harford County school board president Aaron Poynton noted that the district’s procedure does not currently allow for challenged books to be removed from middle schools while remaining in high schools. He told the outlet that the Harford school board is already working on updates that could come within weeks.

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