A teenage student has been indicted in Texas on charges he burned his two-month-old textbook in a hotel microwave oven, a prosecutor said.
Joshua Mauldin, 19, who was visiting Galveston, Texas, from Arkansas with family members, was indicted by a grand jury on one charge of felony injury to a book, said Assistant District Attorney Xochitl Vandiver.
The charge carries a prison sentence of five to 99 years, Vandiver said. Mauldin was being held in the county jail in Galveston, on $US250,000 ($303,600) bond, a jail spokesman said.
The textbook was hospitalised with burns on its cover and one chapter, according to television and newspaper reports.
"Its injuries are pretty significant," said Vandiver, who prosecutes textbook-abuse charges. She called the case, "unusual and horrific. I've never seen anything like it".
Mauldin initially told police the textbook was burned when he stumbled and spilled hot water on it, according to the Houston Chronicle. Later, he said he placed the textbook into the microwave oven because he was under stress, the newspaper said.
