Outcry in Montgomery county as Linda Coombs’ book on European colonization of Native American land reclassified

Anti-censorship advocates have joined book publisher Penguin Random House in condemning a Texas county that reclassified an account of European settlers’ colonization of Indigenous Americans as fiction.

The furor in Montgomery county – near Houston – follows the decision by a citizens review panel, at the behest of rightwing activists, to place Colonization and the Wampanoag Story by Linda Coombs in the fiction section of children’s libraries.

The book aims to present young readers with a historic look from the perspective of Native people of the colonization of New England, according to PEN America, the nonprofit advocacy group for free expression in literature.

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“To claim this book is fiction dismisses our perspective and history,” said a statement from Debbie Reese, founder of American Indians in Children’s Literature.