Jodi Picoult Gave Away 600 Copies of Nineteen Minutes in Utah

What did Jodi Picoult do in Salt Lake City? During a Saturday evening talk at West High School, she handed out 600 free copies of Nineteen Minutes, her novel banned from all Utah public schools this year. Carmen Nesbitt reported the giveaway for The Salt Lake Tribune on October 18. The Tribune also reports that districts destroyed their copies, which state law requires.

"I've decided that since Utah did the egregious disservice of passing a law that says my book is illegal on school shelves," Picoult said, "everyone here is getting a copy of it." She told the crowd they were welcome to keep the copy, and she encouraged them to give it to a teen who might "need to read it." "Books allow people to have empathy and see experiences outside their own," she said.

The talk was part of the first Salt Lake Book Festival, and it was the last U.S. stop on her tour for her latest novel, Hollow Bones.

The festival, then the giveaway

The day before, the Tribune previewed the visit. The festival was free and all day at The Gateway, with author panels, independent booksellers, and artists. Picoult headlined. Her talk was ticketed, offsite in the West High auditorium, at 6:30 p.m.

She told the Tribune beforehand, "I like going places where my books are challenged, because I think that very often, the audiences there are hungry to hear a point of view like mine." She also said, "Don't invite me to Utah unless you want to play."

Nineteen Minutes is a 2007 New York Times bestseller about a school shooting in the fictional town of Sterling, New Hampshire. The novel focuses on the aftermath and on the motivations of the shooter, who was relentlessly bullied. Picoult told the Tribune she is familiar with being a "banned author." Throughout the United States, the Tribune reports, Nineteen Minutes was the most commonly banned book during the 2023-24 school year, according to PEN America. Our PEN America page collects that group's work.

What Utah did with the book

Utah banned Nineteen Minutes from public schools in January, alongside two other novels: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. The Tribune's account of the statute is that a book must come off the shelves of every public school in the state if at least three school districts, or at least two districts and five charter schools, decide it is "objective sensitive material." The paper describes that category as pornographic or otherwise indecent content under Utah code.

The October 17 story spells out what the paper says the code counts. That includes depictions of intercourse, masturbation, or the touching of a character's genitals, and nudity, defined as anything "less than completely and opaquely" covering human genitals, buttocks, and female breasts "below a point immediately above the top of the areola." It also includes any depiction of "male genitals in a discernibly turgid state," covered or not. A book can meet the standard with a single mention.

Since the law took effect two years ago, the Tribune reports, 44 titles have been removed from classroom shelves statewide. Our September report on how the statewide list reached 44 is the earlier count.

Once a book is pulled, the Tribune reports, Utah law requires that it be destroyed. School dumpsters and garbage cans are not acceptable disposal. Donating, reselling, or distributing the material is not allowed. The Salt Lake City School District, Nesbitt writes, feeds removed copies into a shredding machine kept under lock and key. The paper's October 18 story says the copies of Nineteen Minutes were destroyed.

The exact reason a title is removed is not always disclosed, the Tribune reports. Picoult's theory, here and elsewhere, is that Nineteen Minutes contains the word "erection" on one page. "I find it very hard to believe that high school students don't know what that is," she said. She said she was "furious" when she found out. "If I lived in Utah, I would be calling my reps, and I would be saying, 'How dare you let this stand.'"

She added that the novel has won multiple awards, including New Hampshire's 2009 Teen Reader's Choice. "And yet it is being said to be 'harmful and pornographic' and not applicable or appropriate for teens?" she said. "So, I would really like to know the rationale behind that." She also told the Tribune, "You guys went to the trouble of passing a law to keep my book off school shelves."

What the bill's sponsor said, and what she said back

Rep. Ken Ivory, a Republican from West Jordan, sponsored the sensitive-materials law. In September, the Tribune reports, he said the law directs schools to prioritize "protecting children from the harmful effects of illicit pornography" above all else. Picoult called that "an utter lie."

Of the 44 titles removed from all Utah public schools, the Tribune reports, most were written by women. Many deal with sexual abuse, identity, mental health, and navigating girlhood. Two of the books removed statewide are memoirs by sexual abuse survivors: Lucky by Alice Sebold, and A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Dugard.

Why it matters for authors and publishers

The rule the Tribune describes is statewide, not local. Three districts, or two districts and five charter schools, can put a book on a removal list that covers every Utah public school. In January that list took Nineteen Minutes, Maguire's Wicked, and Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower in the same action. The paper's count since the law took effect is 44 titles.

The copies do not move to another shelf. Nesbitt reports that the law requires them destroyed: not dumped, not donated, not resold, not given away. Salt Lake City uses a shredder kept under lock and key. An author cannot assume a removed book is still in the school library.

Picoult's answer, on the last U.S. date of the Hollow Bones tour, was to give away 600 copies at a ticketed talk in a public high school and ask people to hand them to teenagers. She also asked for the rationale. The Tribune says the exact reason a title is removed is not always disclosed.

Sources

• Carmen Nesbitt, The Salt Lake Tribune, October 18, 2026: the Nineteen Minutes giveaway at West High School
• Carmen Nesbitt, The Salt Lake Tribune, October 17, 2026: preview of Picoult's Salt Lake Book Festival talk