Some parents in Manchester, Mich., are sounding the alarm about a novel planned for an eighth-grade class next spring.

“The Hate U Give,” a purported “young adult novel,” includes “profanity and themes surrounding race and police brutality,” MLive reported. According to author Angie Thomas’ website, the book, her debut novel, “was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement.”

According to the site, the book chronicles 16-year-old Starr Carter, who lives in a “poor neighborhood” and attends a “fancy suburban prep school.” She witnesses “the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.”

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In the novel, Khalil’s death soon becomes a national headline.

“What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr,” the description on Thomas’ website reads. “But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.”

Even Manchester School Board President Brandon Woods “questioned whether it was truly a young adult book,” MLive reported.

“I just have a hard time with these books, and I’m going to have to agree with the parents,” the outlet quoted Woods as saying. “Again, this is the second time this has happened. The first time, parents left the district.”

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According to MLive, the teacher tried to assuage concerns.

“The point of the book is to expose the students and prepare them for a world outside these four walls,” the outlet quoted teacher Julie Brilliant as saying. “That doesn’t mean all police officers are bad. The misconceptions that parents have is that I’m trying to push my beliefs on students.”

The book is no stranger to controversy, and school systems nationwide have opted to remove it from their curriculum or libraries. The concerns come at a time when some frame any concerns about a book as tantamount to book banning.

In November 2017, a parent in Katy, Texas, complained about the book, and the city’s school district withdraw it from the system. In July 2018, the Fraternal Order of Police Tri-County Lodge #3, a South Carolina police union, raised objections about the book’s inclusion on the ninth grade reading list at a Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, high school.

“Freshmen, they’re at the age where their interactions with law enforcement have been very minimal,” WCBD-TV quoted John Blackmon, the fraternal order’s president, as saying at the time. “They’re not driving yet, they haven’t been stopped for speeding, they don’t have these type of interactions. This is putting in their minds, it’s almost an indoctrination of distrust of police and we’ve got to put a stop to that.”

Some Washington County, Utah, School District libraries removed the book in December 2021. The Edgerton, Minn., Public School District school board voted to withdraw the book from the freshman curriculum in 2022.

Earlier this year, Florida’s Collier County Public Schools withdrew the book.

The American Library Association also included the book on its list of the top 10 most challenged books multiple times, including in 2018 and 2019. According to the association, it was “banned and challenged because it was deemed ‘anti-cop,’ and for profanity, drug use, and sexual references.”

“This is not appropriate for kids to be taught in school, there are parents who are very upset about this,” one parent told the school board in Watertown, New York, WWNY-TV reported.