Oof. You know I try to keep my posts light. Our world is on fire, and we don’t need more negativity. But I received yet another email from an educator asking if I could write a letter in defense of teaching my middle grade memoir Free Lunch to students.
So I wanted to share it with y’all (see below aforementioned educator’s email to me), in case you need it for yourself, your school, or for an educator you know who finds themselves in a similar situation. This conversation is not meant only for my book, but for the hundreds of other books out there being questioned or banned.
If any of you want to chat further, you know where to find me.
Hugs all around.
-R
*My most recent email asking for help. This is the 9th one I’ve received this year.
October 17, 2025
To the Board of Education, Superintendent, Curriculum Director, Administrators, teachers, librarians, and parents of students in [Redacted for the privacy of the educator who I wrote this for],
Howdy folks,
My name is Rex Ogle, and I’m an author for young readers, especially in the middle grade and young adult space. I am best known for my award-winning middle school memoir, Free Lunch, which is a true story—my story—of my life as a 6th grader dealing with poverty, domestic violence, and home instability. It is not an easy read, but I believe it is an important one.
Right now, in the United States, there are 3.5 million children living with domestic violence.
Right now, in the United States, there are 4.2 million children living without homes.
And, right now, in the United States, there are 11 million children living in poverty.
These are real numbers about real people. This is the reality we live in today. That is why I wrote my memoir. I certainly didn’t want to. Writing Free Lunch was one of the most painful things I’ve ever done. I spent two years confronting the pain of my past in order to write this book. And I did so—not because it was fun or because I hoped to make money from it—but because it felt necessary.
As a child, living as I did, I didn’t want the rich kids at my school to mock me for being poor, which they did anyway. I didn’t want my friends knowing that I often missed meals because my parents couldn’t get work. And I showed up at school with black eyes and let others jump to the conclusion that I was a bad kid who got in fights, rather than confess that my parents beat me on a regular basis. I felt so utterly alone in my pain.
I wrote Free Lunch with the hope that kids would read it and, a.) see themselves in the narrative and know that they weren’t alone in their suffering, and/or b.) see their peers in the narrative and develop a sense of empathy and compassion for those living with less.
I understand that my memoir is a difficult read. I understand it has emotionally-heavy moments. And I understand that it paints a very real portrait of what our society looks like when it fails to take care of us. But… THIS. IS. OUR. REALITY.
I’m not asking any of you to buy the book. And I am not asking any of you to force anyone to read the book. What I am asking is that you allow your children and students to decide for themselves if they want to read the book. Kids are smarter than we give them credit for. And they will self-censor if something is too much for them.
Today, in 2025, we have an entire generation of students growing up online. Our youth have easy and instant access to everything from video clips of shoot-em-up games like Call of Duty (where murdering people with guns is considered a victory) to pornography (where consenting adults are engaging in all kinds of sexual acts, be them deviant from the norm or not). And these youth are experiencing this mature content without context.
Free Lunch—alongside so many other important books written for underprivileged children—are important because they do offer context.
Whether we like it or not, our children are seeing and hearing and chatting with their friends about violence and sex. So why shouldn’t we be actively engaging in conversations with our children about violence and sex and poverty and so on? This is the world we live in, so rather than shy away from having difficult conversations, let’s all talk… together.
In the last five years I have done over 100 school visits, and I hear the same thing over and over and over again. I am told that kids who do not read, read my book, start to finish, and then read it again. Because my book is real. My narrative is honest. And the story resonates with them because it is an experience they are intimately familiar with.
[Redacted for the privacy of the educator who I wrote this for] is a teacher who believes in giving her students the best education she can. And that includes showing them the world they live in, so that they can learn to discuss it in a group and find a way to make our world—and their world—a better place.
My life has a humble start in trailer parks and government subsidized housing. My shoes had holes in them, my clothes were all hand-me-downs from neighbors, and I was lucky if I had three square meals a day. But I worked every day of my life for a better tomorrow. In the last 25 years, I have worked as an editor at Marvel, DC Comics, and Scholastic, working on brands such as LEGO, Star Wars, Despicable Me, Pokémon, Transformers, and more, many of which became NY Times Bestsellers. And in the last 6 years, I have published 16 books for young readers, and have over 20 more in the process of being made.
I share this—not to brag—but to show you what I show children in my school presentations: that if I made it out of my rough start at life, then so can they.
Every child deserves to be given the hope for a better future. And reading will help them get there. So let them read. Let them learn. Help them to build a better tomorrow for all of us.
If any of you would like to set up a virtual call to express your concerns further, I am more than happy to engage in a polite and civil conversation with all of you so that we can find a way forward to support our children—together.
Sending my very best,
Rex Ogle