So cool that Barnes & Noble even has a special display featuring “banned books”

I was most disturbed to read a recent article in one of the weekly magazines I subscribe to titled, “Battling over books – Conservative groups and Republican Officials are campaigning to ban books from schools and libraries.” The article showed the cover of a children’s book titled “My Two Dads and Me,” that was banned by a school district in Walton County, Florida.

And I have even seen this play out in my own city, Raleigh and Wake County, North Carolina. A few parents even filed a lawsuit demanding that such books as “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison and “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe be removed from school libraries for being inappropriate pornography.

So I decided to order these three aforementioned books to read them for myself.

“My Two Dads and Me” written by Michael Joosten and illustrated by Izak Zenou is targeted for pre-school children to depict two fathers enjoying all kinds of activities with their kids. The diversity depicted in the book presents children with a beautiful diverse view of family configurations. The various illustrations include two white dads with a brown baby, a brown dad and a white dad with a white kid, a black dad and white dad with a brown kid, and two white dads with a white kid. And the diversity includes nerdy looking dads, dads with facial hair, bald dads and more.

Two of the banned books I ordered and read

The reality is that some kids have two moms or two dads, or maybe just one mom or one dad, and of course a mom and a dad. Trying to deny the existence of same gender couples with kids does a grave disservice to these parents, their children and society as a whole.

Then I read “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison. This beautiful novel follows an Hispanic young man raised in poverty by a struggling single mother. The well meaning young protagonist Mike struggles with a rash of bad luck, much of it coming at the hands of opportunistic and selfish wealthy business owners who exploit their labor. In addition, Mike is trying to discover himself, including grappling with the possibility that he may be gay.

The complainers about this book described it as pornography. Yes, the book did include some cuss words, and it did reference a blow job, but there were no descriptive pornographic scenes in the book. In addition, the book was written for high school reading level and adults, and certainly there is nothing in this book that these readers have not already seen and heard. It is more likely that these close-minded bigots who protested about this book have never read it, and simply do not want anything dealing with sexual orientation, racism or class struggles to be made available.

In addition, the back of the book includes a discussion guide for small group discussions around topics such as impact of growing up in poverty on world view, differences in economic class, etc.

Next on my reading list is “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, an autobiography dealing with identifying as nonbinary and asexual. Reading about the experiences of people different from myself will help me grow as a more inclusive and understanding human being.