Mesquite resident Brittany Lankford, 43, filed her 412th formal book challenge with the Mesquite Independent School District this week, requesting the immediate removal of “The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963,” a YA novel about a Black family driving south during the Civil Rights era. When pressed by a reporter, Lankford acknowledged she had not personally read the book, nor any of the 411 titles she has previously challenged, but said she had “a real strong feeling about the cover.”

“I don’t have time to sit and read all of these. I have a life,” said Lankford, who has spent an estimated 1,940 hours over the past two years drafting challenge forms in a Google Doc titled “BOOKS (NO).” Lankford added that her process involves “scanning the title” and “praying on it for about a minute, minute and a half.” District librarian Doris Vega, 58, who has personally processed each complaint, declined to comment on the record but was overheard at the copy machine murmuring, “She challenged the dictionary. She challenged the dictionary, Linda.”