My new book, The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad, is out today. It tells the story of the botanists who worked at the world's first seed bank during the 900-day siege––and how they were faced with a terrible decision: eat the fruits of their research to survive, or protect the collection for science.

Far be it from me to try to get in the heads of book banners, but the list of my books removed from schools makes absolutely no sense. Turtles is widely banned even though it's the least explicit of my novels (the main character is terrified of kissing), whereas TFIOS--where they DO IT--is not...