80s Alum Writes Banned Books on Kids, Gender Issues, and Now, Book Banning

Jacob, a character inspired by their son, is the star of a series of four books offering representation as well as lessons about inclusivity, acceptance, and respect. Through stories about a dress, bathrooms, pronouns, same-sex families, and a book missing from the school library, the Hoffmans provide ways to have important cultural conversations about some of the most polarizing issues of our day. Now one of their books is heading to the Supreme Court.

We talked with Hoffman about how she and her husband got to this place.

How did the “Jacob” books begin?

When our son Sam was little, he had long hair, his favorite color was pink, and he wore dresses. This was 20 years ago, and even though we were in San Francisco, we didn’t know any other kids like Sam. It was lonely, for him and for us. Worse, Sam faced social challenges in preschool, elementary school, and the world. His gender identity and his gender expression didn’t match in the way people expected them to, which caused many people to react to him in confusion, fear, and, sometimes, rage. This often left little Sam in distressing situations, and it left us, as his parents, searching for ways to both affirm who he was and protect him from harm.

Books have always been hugely important in our lives, and once we had kids, we looked to picture books to help them through whatever new situation they might face: starting preschool, losing a first tooth, friendship struggles, losing a beloved pet. Once Sam started asking to wear a princess dress-up costume at school, we looked around for books about boys like him — and discovered there were none.

At the time, I was a journalist and wrote personal essays on a range of topics. Sam inspired me to write, for an adult audience, about the experience of raising a child who didn’t fit into gender norms. My husband, an architect, was writing children’s picture books on unrelated subjects. We’d worked together on writing projects in the past, and one day it dawned on us that we could collaborate: We’d write a picture book about a little boy who wanted to wear a dress.

We saw Jacob’s New Dress as a way to help kids who are different from the norm learn to accept themselves, and to help kids who aren’t different to learn to be kind. We’ve heard over the years that the book also helps parents feel less alone in supporting their children. Teachers and librarians tell us it’s a helpful tool in talking about the diverse gender expression they see in young people.

With the success of Jacob’s New Dress, we went on to tackle other topics, such as using the bathroom that’s right for you in Jacob’s Room to Choose and pronouns in Jacob’s School Play: Starring He, She, and They!. In our most recent book, Jacob’s Missing Book, we tackle book banning from a kid’s-eye point of view.
 
What is the missing book in Jacob’s Missing Book?

The missing book is And Tango Makes Three, which holds special meaning for our family. It’s the true story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo, in the Central Park Zoo. The zookeepers noticed that Roy and Silo were a couple and watched them build a nest. When Roy and Silo rolled a rock into their nest to sit on, the way they saw the other penguin couples sitting on their eggs, the zookeepers took an abandoned egg and gave it to the male couple. Roy and Silo hatched their egg and raised their baby: Tango.
 
And Tango Makes Three is one of the most-often banned books in the United States. Like in the top ten. Despite being nonfiction, and about penguins. Whenever we got news that one of our books was being banned, we could count on Tango being banned there, too. So besides loving the book, we felt a strong sense that we were comrades-in-arms with the authors.

We believe that all kids should be able to see themselves represented in books. And that kids are harmed when they can’t see themselves reflected. It’s a lonely place to be.

Why did you start using a pen name?

When I first started writing about kids and gender for an adult audience, I was shocked by the volume of hate mail I received. I realized quickly that I needed a pen name if I wanted to write and keep my family safe (and soon we all had pen names).
 
What’s it like having your books banned?

The first time a book of ours was banned was in 2017, three years after Jacob’s New Dress was published. The New York Times called to tell us the book was banned in a school district in North Carolina. Lots of people from North Carolina reached out to us in support, and we received some good press coverage — it was a strangely exciting and heartening experience.
 
But in the last four years, there’s been a spike in bans totally different from anything that went on in the previous 20 years. Back in 2017, our book was only taken out of three schools in one school district. Now, our books are banned in 26 states — many of which promise job termination, fines, and criminal penalties — even prison in some places, such as Florida —for librarians and teachers who even show students copies of our books.
 
To put the current situation in perspective: From 2000 to 2020, about 400 book titles were challenged each year. (A challenge means someone objected to the book, and the school or library has to review whether or not it would be banned.) But in the 2023–24 school year, PEN America recorded 10,046 instances of book bans. And that number doesn’t include soft censorship, which is when librarians and teachers remove books to avoid controversy and possible consequences.
 
In addition to outright bans and soft censorship, there are other ways to restrict access to literature. For example: Recently, in Spanish Fort, Alabama, a school district moved Jacob’s New Dress to the adult section. This isn’t a ban, per se, but it’s restricting access to the book for its intended audience. There’s also the chilling effect of new government policies critical of discussing the issues raised in our books.
 
We believe that all kids should be able to see themselves represented in books. And that kids are harmed when they can’t see themselves reflected. It’s a lonely place to be. So ultimately, we just feel heartbroken by all this.
 
Who is doing all this banning?

In the early days, it was an individual here or there who didn’t like our books. Now, the haters are organized.
 
There are politicians in many states using the legislative system to deny access to literature. Working with politicians are a number of groups that claim to be grassroots “parents’ rights” organizations that are, in fact, “astroturfing,” not grassroots — they’re part of a large, well-funded, right-wing political movement.
 
This movement uses organized campaigns to remove hundreds of books at a time from libraries; take over local school and library boards; get authors’ social media accounts taken down (which happened to us); target LGBTQ/BIPOC-inclusive books on Amazon to tank their ratings (which happened to us); and dox authors, teachers, and librarians to expose them to hate and threats of violence (which, thankfully, has not happened to us, yet). All this rhetoric about books harming children leads to a climate of hatred against authors, teachers, and librarians, and, in fact, against the people represented in books like ours. This climate prompts ordinary people to do things they might not ordinarily do — things they feel justified in doing because they believe they’re doing this work in defense of children.

We know that a little rectangle of paper and ink and cardboard can change lives. So we did what we do, and wrote a book.

And one of your books is headed for the Supreme Court?

That’s right! Montgomery County, Maryland, the largest school district in the state, recently brought new books into its language arts curriculum to more fully represent the district’s students and families. They did this with professional guidance from educators and a public, participatory selection process. The list includes nine LGBTQ-affirming books, among them our second book, Jacob’s Room to Choose.
 
Some parents wanted the ability to opt out of having their children present while these books are read or discussed. They allege that not being able to opt their children out of exposure to the curriculum violates their First Amendment right to freedom of religion. The district says that such opting-out brings up logistical concerns around parental notification and administering notice requirements weeks before a book can be brought into the classroom, and raises concerns about student absenteeism. Worse, opt-outs bring up “the risk of exposing students who believe the storybooks represent them and their families to social stigma and isolation,” to quote the district’s lawyers.
 
A federal district court denied the parents’ initial case, and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. Then the families appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which took on the case.
 
This is only the second time the highest court has taken on a book-banning case. The first time was in 1976, when a group of high schoolers sued their Long Island public school district for removing books from their library. With the support of the ACLU and after a six-year battle, the court found that the Constitution, through the First Amendment, does not permit suppression of ideas, and that removing books is a violation of the First Amendment’s freedom-of-speech protections.
 
The law firm representing the plaintiffs in today’s case, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, works broadly against LGBTQ equality and reproductive justice — in the name of “religious freedom.” They work to overturn laws that protect abortion care providers and patients; in 2014, they won a case for Hobby Lobby that granted businesses the right to deny employees healthcare that includes contraception; they filed an amicus brief in the Dobbs case. They have taken eight cases to the Supreme Court since 2012. They have won all of them.
 
It’s worth noting that the funding behind this case has ties to similar right-wing extremists who fund the astroturfing book banning groups. The lead plaintiffs in the case are Muslim, members of a group that knows all too well the pain and indignity of not being fairly represented in our culture. And in a peculiar turn, the group funding the plaintiff’s legal team have a long history of funding anti-Muslim causes.
 
How do you hope Jacob’s Missing Book will help?
 
When the first onslaught of book banning happened, we were in despair. And then we sat ourselves down and remembered: We’re writers. We know that a little rectangle of paper and ink and cardboard can change lives. So we did what we do, and wrote a book.
 
Teachers tell us they were looking for an accessible book about book banning. Librarians and booksellers are enthusiastic. And Jacob’s Missing Book was just picked by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center as one of their top choices of 2025. So that all feels hopeful. But we also need to do more.
 
It’s overwhelming, and there’s no magic answer — we’re all just fighting in the ways we can. But often, resistance can be found in stories. In using our voices. In joining with our communities. In standing up for what we believe in whatever way, and on whatever forum, we can.
 
So we’re supporting, with our time and our resources, the organizations fighting book banning. These organizations get banned books into readers’ hands, directly oppose book bans, promote free speech and voting rights, fight hate and extremism, and do investigative journalism and fact-based reporting. We’ve put together a list of the organizations, which is available on our website.