Yes, The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives Is Banned!

Dashka Slater’s The 57 Bus tells the true story of two Oakland teenagers whose lives collided on a public bus in 2013. Sasha, a white, nonbinary student at a private school, fell asleep on the bus. Richard, a Black teenager from a rougher neighborhood, set Sasha’s skirt on fire. What could have been a simple crime story becomes something far more complex in Slater’s hands. She traces both kids’ lives in full: Sasha’s journey to understanding their gender identity, Richard’s struggles in a neighborhood shaped by poverty and violence. The book refuses to flatten either person into a headline.

The 57 Bus has been challenged 10 times across Florida, Texas, Idaho, Kansas, Tennessee, and Wisconsin, listed for violence. But the real discomfort for challengers seems to be the book’s matter-of-fact discussion of nonbinary gender identity and the pronoun “they.” Slater’s reporting won a Stonewall Award and was a National Book Award finalist. It’s used in classrooms because it teaches empathy, critical thinking, and the idea that justice requires seeing whole people, not caricatures. Pulling it from shelves means students lose one of the best nonfiction books written for young adults in the past decade.