I would love to just talk about picture books. Writing them has been my job for the past several years, and a general appreciation for a cute story has turned into a deep awe for the art form. But in part because my early reader “Call Me Max,” an anodyne story about a young trans boy, was displayed onstage with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis when he signed the so-called Don’t Say Gay bill into law, more often than not these days, I am asked to speak about book bans.
My early reader “Call Me Max,” an anodyne story about a young trans boy, was displayed onstage with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis when he signed the so-called Don’t Say Gay bill into law.
Understandably so. An all-out assault on the First Amendment, that specifically targets a vulnerable population with very few rights, is an urgent issue with inextricable ties to much larger problems plaguing our world. Hundreds of books are read to jeers of derision in front of extremist right-wing activists, quietly pulled from library shelves and occasionally burned.
As a former school librarian, the first trans person to win a Newbery honor and a recipient of two Stonewall Book Awards, I repeatedly receive invitations to speak on panels or to talk to journalists. They tell me that I’m the “perfect person” to lend my perspective on this dire issue.
Picture books, no less than other kinds of literature, lend themselves to a lifetime of study. I’d rather give a talk similar to the keynote I once delivered that looked at “The Runaway Bunny” as a metaphor for trans identities and lives. I’d rather be interpolating the Frog and Toad stories with the details I gleaned about author Arnold Lobel’s life. I could talk for hours about what “The Giving Tree” has to teach us about love, relationships, art and life.
But I’m most often asked to address “What does it feel like to get a book banned?” or “Why do you think they want to ban your books?”
If you’re detecting a hint of weariness in my tone, well, it can’t be helped. In the past two years, I’ve published two novels, a series of early chapter books, a nonfiction picture book biography and my first book for the youngest of audiences. The early chapter books weave interesting facts about ocean life with the adventures of a mermaid and her octo-kid friend. (Did you know that octopus arms can have independent personalities? That was a fun story to write.)
The book I wrote for babies uses a devilishly complex rhyme scheme that I came up with myself. In 126 words, I tell a story about a baby’s day from waking up to falling asleep. The nonfiction picture book was my first collaboration. I worked with young transgender activist Gavin Grimm to translate his story for readers. We centered it on an important question: What are some of the choices that kids get to make?
But why I think my books are being banned and how I feel about them being banned is what people want to know.
There are so many possible answers to those questions, and I have answered them, at length, in one-on-one conversations, in assemblies for middle schoolers, to The Washington Post, again and again and again. And while there is always more to say, more angles to explore, more arguments to unpack, I worry that focusing on book banning gives the book banners more power.
Information thrives on repetition. Show two objects side by side often enough, and people will connect them. That’s why I’m worried that repeatedly referring to me and my career in stories and conversations about book banning will cement that association in people’s minds and cause future readers to ask, “Does this book deserve to be banned?” instead of “How do I feel about this book?”
I worry that instead of judging my work on its merits, people will decide to read or not read me in order to prove “I read banned books” or signal “I don’t read that kind of book.”
I worry that instead of judging my work on its merits, people will decide to read or not read me in order to prove “I read banned books” or signal “I don’t read that kind of book.” I worry that people will decide to read or not read my books only because they feel like they should or shouldn’t. I also worry that when I choose to defend myself that I am taking part in a conversation that only the book banners want to have.
But ignoring them doesn’t help. I’d be abandoning my colleagues in their fights against this censorship movement, and I’d be ignoring the ways that our rights and our careers are intertwined. We depend on one another to defend and foster the kind of robust literary culture that allows for a wide and diverse array of stories and storytellers. So keeping quiet isn’t an option. At least it’s not an option that would let me sleep at night.
So, I try to maintain a balance. I say yes to some requests. I regretfully decline others. I focus on my work and on supporting my colleagues. I come up with new ideas, write them down, send them to my agent, see what happens next. And I sometimes talk about what I don’t want to talk about, and how we can turn this shameful moment into a part of our past.
And sometimes I create my own opportunities. While vacationing last summer in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a longtime haven for queer writers and artists, I visited the Fine Arts Work Center and proposed teaching a class on picture books. That proposal led to an entire week of workshops focused on teaching how to write young adult and middle-grade novels, picture and illustration books, fiction and nonfiction, in the center’s first Youth Lit Week to be held this summer.
Youth Lit Week will overlap with Family Week, the largest annual gathering of LGBTQ+ families in the world. My hope is that more institutions and organizations follow this model, allocating resources for writers and artists to thrive, so we can continue to do what we do best: create stories that will outlive us even in the face of opposition.
Some people study Shakespeare or Gerard Manley Hopkins or Wordsworth. I study picture books. Here’s to the day all my invitations are to talk about them — and not the governor of Florida.
