NEW YORK (AP) — Until a year ago, Stephana Ferrell’s political activism was limited to the occasional letter to elected officials.

Then came her local school board meeting in Orange County, Florida and an objection raised to Maia Kobabe’s graphic novel “Gender Queer: A Memoir.” And the county’s decision last fall to remove it from high school shelves.

WATCH: School librarians speak out against recent upsurge in attempts to ban books

“By winter break, we realized this was happening all over the state and needed to start a project to rally parents to protect access to information and ideas in school,” says Ferrell, a mother of two. Along with fellow Orange County parent Jen Cousins, she founded the Florida Freedom to Read Project, which works with existing parent groups statewide on a range of educational issues, including efforts to “keep or get back books that have gone under challenge or have been banned.”

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