Brigette Bandit defended "drag queen story hour" in a speech at the Texas Democratic Convention. “I am a product of the Texas public school system," she said. "I have worked with children for over a decade and I am now a full time (female) drag queen."
We don't have clowns read books to kids for story hour. (It would be distracting and perhaps scary for the little ones.) Why drag queens?
And really, Texas Democrats, is this your plan for winning the election?
In a conversation with an imaginary Uber driver, Rick Hess offers the parents' point of view on sexually explicit books in school libraries.
“My 7th-grade daughter brought home this book called Gender Queer from her monthly visit to the school library," says the driver. She was "reading to me about this kid’s ‘standard method of masturbation’ and imaginary blow jobs. She’s twelve!"
The parents' group "tried to bring it up to the school board," the driver says, but "the board said it was too explicit" to discuss.
Whether the characters are queer or straight, parents don't want their 12-year-olds reading about sex toys, says the driver.
Hess explains “schools are trying to be inclusive and ensure there’s LGBTQ+ representation in libraries and reading lists . . .”
The driver wants "books about gay kids that are more like Harry Potter or Snow White and less like some adult website."
Hess explains that librarians don't censor books. "PEN America explains that ‘if a book that was previously available to all now requires parental permission, or is restricted to a higher grade level than educators initially determined, that is a ban.’”
The driver is confused. The school district removed books from the K-12 summer reading lists on the advice of the School Library Journal. The list includes "To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Lord of Flies, and a bunch of Shakespeare," she says. "Isn’t 1984 partly about book banning? And they’re banning it!”
“No, no, no,” says Hess. That's called "refreshing the canon."
Nina Welsch quit her school librarian job at a private school in Scotland she writes on UnHerd. The senior librarian had ordered Grandad’s Pride, which includes an illustration of a man in fetish gear, for June's Pride display. The picture book is intended for children under the age of seven.
The library shelves and bookstores are filled with books by "activists disguised as children's authors," Welsch writes. Many are "deeply unsuitable" for children. Yet, the few children’s authors who've expressed concern about trans ideology "have been hounded and cast out."
While questionable material is marketed to children, other books are taken off the shelves in the name of making public libraries "safe" and "inclusive," writes Welsch. Once librarians were told to avoid political bias. Now they're urged to protect would-be readers from “hate speech” and “misinformation," giving the green light to those who want to advance their own political agendas.
After we finish "refreshing the canon," can we give the faculties and administrations a giant enema?