Inspired by a viral Internet story from the mid-2010s, it tells of an African-American North Carolina girl student's fight against book censorship.

Amy Anne Ollinger, a fourth-grade African-American North Carolina student, visits her school library to borrow her favorite book, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs.

[6] Ban This Book received positive reviews upon its original August 2017 publication; Booklist's Jennifer Barnes and School Library Journal contributor Laurie Slagenwhite Walters recommended it for middle-grade collections.

"[4] The staff at Kirkus Reviews noted the references to real library-challenged titles, and found it "Contrived at some points, polemic at others, but a stout defense of the right to read.

[8] Gratz told the Tallahassee Democrat the following month that the same themes discussed in the story led to its ban, which he felt was "incredibly ironic".