I don’t think my local library has sponsored a drag queen story hour. I’ve never seen one advertised. But I also don’t think that the community is quite ready for that, yet, despite the influx of California refugees. But such a thing may rear its makeup-laden head in the near future. And of course, libraries across the nation have hosted drag queen story hours, so Kirk Cameron came up with a response.
It was not a protest or a confrontation. Cameron was not going to assemble a band of angry parents to storm library board meetings across the nation or establish a beachhead in parking lots next to the book drops. Cameron has published a new children’s book called As You Grow. It is a book that highlights things such as family, faith, and biblical wisdom.
It would appear that Cameron and his publisher, Brave, figured that if libraries would make time for drag queen story hours, they might be interested in doing the same for a book that champions traditional values. I think the Cameron camp may have known that this would be a quixotic effort, but it was a creative way to respond to the current fad of men in drag reading stories to kids. In many precincts, the response was would you would expect.
Fox News reports that Cameron and his publishers queried libraries across the nation to see if they would host a story hour. And at least 50 either said to go pound sand or didn’t acknowledge the request. For example, the Rochambeau Public Library in Providence, R.I., told Brave, “No, we will pass on having you run a program in our space. We are a very queer-friendly library. Our messaging does not align.”
The publisher was told it could fill out a request form to reserve a space, but the request would be rejected. Similar, if somewhat more polite, responses came from the City Heights/Weingart Branch Library in San Diego, the Alameda County Library system, and a library in Scarsdale, N.Y. Each of these libraries hosts LGBTQ events, and a branch in San Lorenzo, Calif., holds clinics and workshops to help people update their gender on legal documents. The Indianapolis Public Library System said that its current focus was on authors of color.
So far, Cameron has found no takers.
Obviously, these and many other libraries have decided that Americans have had more than enough of white, male, cis-gendered, Christian, colonizing material, and it is time to “right the ship” as it were. Although “right” may not be the word they are looking for. “Straighten” the ship? No, that would never fly. We’ll circle back to that problem another time.
Or is it simply that they have permanently thrown their lots in with the current cultural juggernaut? Granted, the backlash against a Kirk Cameron appearance at a children’s story hour would be severe. And maybe they just want to save themselves from coming up with apologies to the guerillas. Or it may just be that true believers are terrified of alternative ideas, and the new status quo must be enforced and upheld. And it must be protected from even the smallest thing that might cause it to crumble.
I am a big believer in libraries. They are free and full of books, both printed and digital, and there are other resources aimed at demographics other than mine.
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with my local library. It is still trying to fill its shelves, having moved into larger digs a few years ago, so it is a little sparse for my taste. And for some reason, the Dewey Decimal system is no longer in use. They have just sort of thrown all of the non-fiction books on a particular subject together. They don’t even alphabetize them by author. At least they still alphabetize the fiction section. But for anything else, you need to begin your search in the area where your book is supposed to be and read every spine until you find the one you want.
And the place is woke. I’ve never been in the children and teen sections, but the adult section is rife with left-wing books. If I am looking for a book by a conservative author, or even someone just middle-of-the-road, the hunt is on. And aside from Glenn Beck or LDS books (this is Utah, after all), conservative books seem to be in short supply and almost impossible to locate. But if I ever want a book on CRT, transgender issues, etc., or want to beat myself up about how horrible I am because of things I have never done, I have plenty of options. More than I could count if I ever wanted to try.
Woke titles seem to outnumber any others, or so it appears every time I have gone in. I signed up to be on the library board once. I was actually selected and then was told that the position would not be open for another year or so, but I was welcome to attend the meetings with the rest of the public. Maybe someone Googled me and found my columns. Oh well. At least they were polite about it.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member