Welcome to Assembly required with Stacey Abrams from Cricket Media.

I'm your host Stacey Abrams. While I am better known from my work in the

civic and political realms, I'm also a published author. I've written legal and political thrillers,

non-fiction, romantic suspense, and three children's books,

including a new one coming out September 24th. And one reason I love to write is that it gives me the excuse to be nosy.

It also allows me to dive into topics outside of my regular life and to explore new ideas.

It's in fact the first part of my mantra which is be curious. The

rest is to solve problems and do good. And for me reading and writing are

foundational. It's how we understand the world around us and the universe

inside us. Growing up, reading showed me and my sisters and brothers

possibilities that our daily lives never could.

And so the idea that some want to restrict access to books is a personal affront.

Yet book bands have once again reared their ugly heads and the proponents aren't shy about it.

Often the argument is that the books in question offend someone's moral code and

many of the arguments presented to challenge or to ban books are about

protecting children from sexually explicit content or the incredibly vague

epithet obscenity. This is not a new argument or a new line of attack. In fact in

1973 the US Supreme Court decided to offer a guide in response to the

perennial question in a case called Miller v. California.

In their decision the court devised a way to assess what is considered obscene in a book

in a film in a work of art.

And it's now known as the Miller Test.

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