NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas – Presidential memoirs, “The Three Musketeers,” and even Guinness World Records books have been pulled from New Braunfels ISD library shelves in the face of a new state law, according to records obtained by a Texas nonprofit.
The apparent cuts and other restrictions appear much deeper than the school district has previously conveyed.
After Texas adopted Senate Bill 13, which prohibits school library materials with “profane” and “indecent” content, New Braunfels ISD has been reviewing its library collection to align with state guidelines.
The district lists approximately 450 titles that have either been pulled from its shelves or have been under review for compliance with SB 13.
However, records the Texas Freedom to Read Project received in early February “showed that there was a larger amount of books that are being like internally reviewed and identified for removal or restriction — like being aged up‚" the non-profit’s co-founder Anne Russey told KSAT.
The group requested “records of all titles/books/individual records removed or deleted from the district’s library catalog since June 1, 2025″ - a few weeks before Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 13.
In the spreadsheet of pulled books they got back in early Ferburary, which Russey shared with KSAT, more than 600 titles between the high school, middle school, and elementary school levels were marked “Weeded: SB 13.″
The list did not appear to overlap with the district’s website either.
Memoirs by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton didn’t make the cut, according to the records, nor did George W. Bush’s biography of his father.
Nobel Peace Laureate Malala Yousafzai, Olympic swimmer Katy Ledecky, and actor Matthew McConaughey’s memoirs were similarly tagged “Weeded: SB13.”
Classic books like Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” Alexander Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers,” and “Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry were also tagged.
The records also show hundreds of books at the middle school level listed for “replacement,” including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” — both of which had “adult classics move up” noted next to them.
“It appears that they’re aging up materials — and that might not be specific to Senate Bill 13, according to the district," Russey said. “That could be based on their selection criteria that the board has written out and the way that the district is implementing that criteria.”
Even at the high school level, dozens of classic pieces of literature like “Frankenstein,” “The Great Gatsby,” and “Fahrenheit 451″ were listed as “Restricted Section” with “AP LIT” as the rationale.
Izzy Mason’s children are in 5th and 8th grade. Asked about the apparent discrepancy between the records and the district’s public list, she called it “upsetting.”
“The board has done a very good job of being very opaque about everything that they’re doing,” she said.
Russey told KSAT that NBISD is “not typical” in terms of the books that have been removed.
“There are plenty of school districts in Texas who are removing and restricting, aging up books, but this is probably one of the worst examples that we’ve seen in the work that we do and the attention that we pay to school libraries. This is pretty bad,” she said.
KSAT requested interviews with NBISD for this story on both Tuesday and Wednesday.
In an emailed statement, a district spokeswoman said books may be removed from library shelves for a variety of reasons and pointed to the list of materials under review on the district’s website.
“If a book’s title is not listed on this website, it has been removed from NBISD shelves as part of the campus library’s normal maintenance process,” she wrote.
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