We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

Mind you, the parental challenge was to the book's inclusion in a high school library, not an elementary or middle school, so this particular parent must be a very protective one.

The Texas parent's concern over filth, as far as I can tell, comes down to discomfort with kids reading about gay sex and suicide. Henry's straight older brother gets a girl pregnant outside wedlock, but that's okay in MAGA-land since they lose the baby and anyway get married, so I think we can rule that out as a reason to object to the book. If that's suicidal ideation, it’s on a grand scale: Henry's going to take literally everyone else with him. unless you count his alien abduction fantasy, wherein he's periodically taken aboard a ship in orbit and offered the opportunity to press a big red button, thus canceling the scheduled destruction of the Earth and all life on it. True, Henry thinks about Jesse's suicide 24/7, and while he constantly sets himself up to be beaten by the bullies, he never considers taking his own life. Sometimes parents object to YA novels with themes of suicide and self-harm. well, never mind, I guess with the book-banning crowd it is.

Genitals do not appear, and honestly I can't recall Henry even doing much cussing. gay sex goes on in these pages, but is never described. Henry has occasional gay sex of an abusive and undefined nature with Marcus, one of the bullies, which fits Henry's self-destructive nature. The boy he was in love with, Jesse, committed suicide last year and Henry can't get past it, rejecting friends, family, teachers, even the new boy he falls in love with (and who falls in love with him). He's gay, a little odd, and bullied at school. The title of the list was 'Filthy Books in Schools.' That right there was enough to pique my interest, so I checked out a copy from my public library. Apparently the parent is part of an organized group filing challenge after challenge against books in school libraries, often ones with LGBTQ themes or characters, and saw 'We Are the Ants' on a emailed list of suggested targets. 'We Are the Ants' came to my attention via a news item from Texas, where a parent is demanding it be removed from a high school library.

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson