Battle over books

Last month, Penfield parent Jennifer Selever shared her concerns at a school board meeting about books in her fifth grader’s school library. One of them, “The Rainbow Parade,” contained age-inappropriate imagery, she contends.

Selever’s complaints about the picture book, which tells the story of a family’s first time at a LGBTQ+ pride parade, include images of the naked backside of a man and two other men in leather harness outfits.

“It doesn’t belong in elementary schools,” she says. “Soft pornography doesn’t belong in schools at all, especially at an elementary level.”

Selever’s concerns, along with those of other Penfield residents have caused sparks to fly among parents and educators. The district finds itself at the center of a growing debate focused on book challenges and parental rights—one that also has flared up elsewhere in the Rochester region in the last several years.

“It’s about books, but also not about books,” observes Cody Miller, an associate professor of English education at SUNY Brockport who has been studying book challenges since 2016. “It covers so much more than that.”

Targeting books

At a Feb. 11 school board meeting, Penfield schools superintendent Tasha Potter reported on the district’s policies on library book selection and its complaint process.

Midway through that explanation, disruption from the large number of audience members (including an attendee dressed in a gorilla costume) caused the board to end the meeting early.

“(Potter) was doing it very tediously, like we were morons, going through it word for word and slide by slide,” recalls Selever. “This was after we had already went through an hour and a half listening to their stuff. They knew we were coming to speak, so that’s why they were trying to filibuster us.

“Someone got a little fed up and asked how hard it was to get books into the system, and that’s when it spiraled,” she says.

Selever first registered objections about several school library books in January during the board’s public comment session. At that meeting there were few, if any, other attendees, a striking contrast to February’s meeting.

Selever’s complaint concerned several images in “The Rainbow Parade” as well as the inclusion of it, and several other books, in a K-5 school library.

“(Grades) are plummeting in every single grade and subject because of the SEL, DEI and CRT that is coming down all the way from the superintendent and the minions to pervert the children’s minds and confuse them with this garbage,” Selever said at the meeting, referring to social-emotional learning; diversity, equity and inclusion; and critical race theory. “This garbage spreads radicalism and is a failure.

“I want to know who approves these books. Is it one of you? Is it all of you? Is it the PTA?” she continued. “Don’t let the buck pass and tell me that everyone needs to feel included here because I’m sick and tired of that rhetoric and the district’s woke agenda.” 

The other books targeted in Selever’s comments included “Not Quite Narwhal” and “Sam is My Sister,” which both also deal with LGBTQ+ themes on metaphorical and explicit levels. The books’ Lexile scores—which measure a text’s difficulty level—range from 590 to 650, making them appropriately challenging for readers Grade 2 to 3, according to the scale. Reading difficulty is one of the standards the Penfield district takes into consideration when deciding which materials to have available in libraries.

Process and policy

Similar to most school libraries, the Penfield district’s policy states that school library media specialists have the authority to select materials. They must meet seven criteria, which include aligning with state learning standards; supporting the district’s curriculum and instructional program; meeting the varied needs and interests of staff and students; presenting various sides of controversial issues; and offering global perspectives and promoting diversity by including materials by authors and illustrators of all cultures.

“The way we have a pluralistic democracy and make it work is by understanding that people are different. That it’s okay to be different and we can all get along and work with each other,” Miller says. “That kind of understanding is crucial to pluralistic democracy.”

“I think libraries should approach things logically and try, as much as they can, not to listen to the outside instigators that aren’t even stakeholders in the situation,” adds Andrew Moran, president of the Rochester Rainbow Union. “There are processes you have to go through when people bring up issues they have with materials. Don’t let it short-circuit that.”

Challenged materials in the Penfield schools go through a review process with a committee composed of, among others, “a district library media specialist, and a building or district administrator,” who will evaluate the material according to the district’s criteria. Their report is to be submitted to the superintendent within 60 days of receipt of the formal written objection.

February’s meeting was attended by supporters of Selever, including the group, Penfield Opposing Woke Education Racism, or POWER. She says the district did not allow her to sign up to speak at the public comments section after several requests.

District spokesperson Nancy Bradstreet disagrees, saying that Selever was on the list of scheduled speakers for the February meeting.

She also says Potter reached out to Selever twice in January following that month’s meeting, explaining the process for library material selection and objections. Selever did not respond to the messages, Bradstreet says.

Robert Kellogg, senior pastor of the Calvary Chapel of Rochester, sent a message urging members of his church to attend the meeting.

“The book, available to kids as young as kindergartners, portrays illicit sexual material that should NOT be available to any minor in any school district,” Kellogg’s message reads. “I believe this is the Lord‘s heart and I know that He would approve of us being prayerful and doing everything we can lawfully, peacefully and prayerfully to turn the tide of these horrible things that are happening in our school district.”

Selever says she now has lodged a formal complaint against “The Rainbow Parade” at the district office. District officials confirmed that Selever, along with two other individuals, have submitted complaints about “The Rainbow Parade.” The district will be convening a committee to review the objections.

Selever says she wants “The Rainbow Parade” removed from all schools and for the Penfield district as a whole to focus on “the basic academics of writing, reading, science, and math.”

“It’s no wonder (proficiency levels) are at such a low level when they are pushing this agenda and this garbage that has no educational value or instructional value in school,” she says. “They are making our children activists instead of trying to get them ready for the real world and know the basics of educational learning.

“The new board needs to stop pushing this DEI agenda and pedophilia because this type of material fuels sex trafficking and desensitizes kids at a young age to think this type of material and behavior is normal,” she adds.

Selever says she supports James Ashby and Sarah Pace, two candidates in the upcoming Penfield Board of Education election to be held in May. Both ran and lost in last year’s election. A shared social media account for Ashby and Pace voiced concerns last October about book choices in a high school English class, citing “Scythe” by Neal Shusterman, a young-adult novel that was runner-up in 2017 for an American Library Association literary award that annually recognizes the “best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit.”

Challenges on the rise

Challenges to books in public schools and public libraries are on the rise. Based on data tracked by the association, there was a surge of cases in 2021 nationwide.

After averaging around 267 book challenges per year from 2014 to 2020, the total spiked 14 times greater with 3,926 attempts in 2021. That trend persisted over the next few years, nearly doubling from that amount to 6,863 titles in 2022 and 9,021 in 2023. (An ALA spokesperson said the data for 2024 would be released later this spring.)

New York has followed that pattern. From 2014 to 2020, there were an average of eight titles challenged annually. The next three years, the totals were 42, 82, and 79. Locations where challenges occurred were split relatively evenly between public and school libraries.

Common themes in books that are challenged include the Black or immigrant experience, race relations, sexual content, police violence, and criticism of American foreign policy.

Overwhelmingly, the type of books that are most often challenged concern the LGBTQ+ community, the ALA found. Among the top 10 most challenged book titles in 2023, seven were tagged as having queer content.

In this way, book challenges have not changed much, in Miller’s view.

He points to the 2005 children’s book “Tango Makes Three.” The picture book was inspired by the real-life story of Central Park Zoo penguins Roy and Silo, two male penguins who paired with each other during mating season.

“That’s a book about penguins. There’s no sex involved,” Miller says. “Because the issue isn’t actually about sex, it’s about the existence of a gay person.”

ALA data found that “Tango Makes Three” was the most challenged book in 2006, 2007 and 2008. It also cracked the top 10 on the ALA list in 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2019.

For her part, Selever is firm on her stance that images in “The Rainbow Parade” are inappropriate regardless of sexual orientation. 

“(My complaints are) not in any way, shape, or form homophobic. If this book were a heterosexual book, I would still feel the same way,” she says. “It’s no place for children to see nudity and soft pornographic material in schools.”

Further, in her view, it is part of a larger agenda intending to radicalize students. She says choosing to display the books prominently with flashy colors and balloons purposely attracts young children to the books.

“There are books with illustrations of bare bottoms for potty training purposes. Is the bare bottom the problem or is this blatant homophobia? I think we know the answer,” responds Ed Poppil, who performs in drag as Mrs. Kasha Davis and is a co-owner of Drag Me To the Stage, an entertainment company with shows in Western and Central New York. He has also written several children’s books about the art form of drag shows.

What is new with the post-2021 book challenge boom, Miller has observed, is that books in the “English literature canon,” those generally accepted as “great works,” no longer seem to be immune.

“Whenever I would do open house events with parents, I would tell them, the most scandalous book we’re ever going to read is actually ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ It’s about teenagers who run away from their parents, have sex, and kill themselves,” says Miller, recalling his own experience teaching ninth-grade English. “We don’t think of it that way, though, because, well, it’s Shakespeare.”

In 2023, one New York school faced challenges against “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck, “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, and “Call of the Wild” by Jack London.

What’s behind the spike?

Citing New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie, Miller says the timing of these book challenges could be wrapped up in a backlash to recent social movements, particularly Black Lives Matter.

“In 2020, we have this massive protest and we know from the numbers, it was cutting across racial lines, ethnic lines, economic lines, education lines. Then in fall, we have schools really starting to grapple with the legacy of white supremacy and curriculum,” he explains. “So, there was this real push to revamp curriculum.”

“Bouie argues that this movement is a response to that progress. We see that backlash in 2021 in the Virginia gubernatorial race where Glenn Youngkin, who runs on banning Toni Morrison and barely wins,” Miller continues. “Any political movement, to gain momentum, needs mythology or they need their ‘folk devils.’”

More recently, he says, critics on the right have transitioned from critical race theory to diversity, equity and inclusion, social-emotional learning and “trans ideology.”

However, by and large, politicians running on a policy of book challenges have been unsuccessful. Miller considers Youngkin’s victory more of a fluke than a rule when it comes to making books a large part of your campaign.

A 2024 study by the Knight Foundation found that most Americans supported children’s access to books and were confident that local public schools had selected appropriate books. While self-identified conservatives were the category with the lowest support, they still were above 55 percent for both questions.

Current events do add an element of uncertainty to that trend. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Education recently decided to end its investigation into book bans across the country, in a press release calling the creation of a hostile environment for students a “hoax.”

The pervasiveness and immediacy of social media is another possible factor in the post-2021 book challenges.

“In my opinion, the fact that social media and mainstream inclusivity is on the rise is because conservatives are feeling the need to fight back,” Poppil says. “Fear of the unknown is how we got here, and as a matter of fact, we have always been ‘here.’ Historically, gay, lesbian, transgender folks and drag have always existed.” 

Adds Moran: “Social media and the reactionary people who maintain power in those spaces, the Elon Musks and such, they’re able to cause trouble for small places and schools just trying to get by. The power is like a cudgel that can be used by people who aren’t even in this community.”

The January board incident was featured in the right-wing provocateur social media account Libs of TikTok, which has over 4.2 million followers. It claimed “The Rainbow Parade” was evidence of a “serious grooming problem” at the school. 

This month, Elon Musk retweeted a Libs of TikTok post on the February board meeting to his 218 million followers, captioned with the text “A kindergartener …”

(The Penfield district has said there is no record of a kindergartener checking the book out. Cobbles Elementary School has only one copy of the book, which, school records show, was checked out in mid-December, 2024. It has yet to be returned to the library, the district says.)

“The messaging around saying ‘groomer,’ it’s not new,” Miller says. “It is an echo of the Anita Bryant argument. If gay people are teachers, they’ll turn their students gay and molest them.”

More disputes

While available data suggests that most book challenges in New York have occurred downstate, the Rochester area is not isolated from this trend. The debate in Penfield is just the latest in several local book-related incidents and disputes.

In 2023, the Hilton Central School District was forced to evacuate students and cancel classes following a bomb threat. The anonymous threat cited the school library carrying “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson (which was challenged nine times in New York from 2014 to 2023) as evidence of school leaders “grooming” children. 

In Wayne County, a Moms For Liberty group and Rev. Jacob Marchitell, pastor of Christ Community Church, challenged “People Kill People” by Ellen Hopkins, “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover, “Red Hood” by Elana K. Arnold, “Jesus Land: A Memoir” by Julia Scheeres and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” at the Clyde-Savannah Junior High and High School in 2023. 

The board’s decision to keep the books was appealed but upheld by the state Commissioner of Education in 2024. Another appeal in the Albany County Supreme Court was set for motions this month. The matter remains unsettled.

“It’s important that we have the (Rochester Rainbow Union) library in an independent space that’s not controlled by government,” says Moran.

“My hope in writing books and as a blanket statement for my work in Drag is to provide something that wasn’t there for me as a child,” Poppil remarks on his own children’s books. “Readers can take from my life experience and as always pull from our mantra ‘If you happen to see someone different in the world, treat them with kindness.’ There’s always time for kindness. Books help us to feel less isolated and not alone. Community saves lives!”

The need to belong

The Rochester Rainbow Union runs the largest circulating queer library in New York that is available to the public. Its location also serves as a space for events and community support. Moran’s favorite moment is seeing people react to the sheer amount of material in the Rochester Rainbow Union’s collection.

“Luckily, Rochester’s local government is supportive of LGBTQ rights,” he says. “But we have seen what happens when people who are against LGBTQ rights get into power. They try banning books and hiding books from public spaces.”

Selever and her allies in POWER position themselves with the concept of “parent’s rights.”

“(POWER) opposes pedagogies and ideologies that undermine meritocracy and parental rights in our schools,” a statement from the group reads. “We strive to ensure that Penfield schools promote diversity of thought, equality of learning opportunities and excellence in academics, athletics, personal growth and achievement.”

Miller acknowledges that there are people whose concerns about books and schools are born from sincere emotion. But that can still undervalue or attack the expertise and autonomy of librarians and teachers who are trained in this work.

He mentions that outsiders to the education system might be unaware there are extensive standards that must be followed for books. Rubrics rating phonetic, literary, and other dimensions of a book are considered before going into curriculum. As a teacher, he taught books for ninth graders that he would never consider for sixth graders.

In addition, the definition of a parent itself is something that intrigues Miller.

“Part of any political movement is setting the terms of the debate, so when people say ‘parents,’ they usually mean ‘straight, white, cisgendered’ parents,” Miller says. “Because the flip side of this is, what about Black parents who want their Black children to read about their history? What about queer parents who want to see their families in their kid’s curriculum? What about straight, cisgender parents who have a trans kid and want to support their child?

“It’s a narrowing of the definition of what it means to be a parent,” he adds. “What it means to belong.”

Citing the writer Koritha Mitchell, Miller identifies this as “know-your-place” aggression. That is, when the achievements of marginalized groups are met with a backlash of violence, “both literal and symbolic, both physical and discursive.”

In running the Rochester Rainbow Union’s library, Moran says its importance is to continue celebrating that existence and offering support in the face of “very familiar” hate. He says now, more than ever, is the time for allies to stand up, support LGBTQ+ organizations, provide safe spaces, and make sure to speak out.

“Our literature and our words is our history, so (book bannings are) almost an aspect of trying to erase us. Often that comes from making the queer community into a scapegoat in a way of deflecting and distracting from actual things that are affecting the world,” he says.

“If you control language, if you control narratives, you can control whether a community existed. You can attempt to erase them from society basically,” he continues. “But we will never be erased.”

“What makes me most proud are straight allies stepping forward and being more vocal about these bans and confronting hate speech,” Poppil says. “This battle is not new, and we are not going anywhere.”

Bradstreet says the committee will convene soon to address the objections they have received about “The Rainbow Parade.”

For now, the district has no plans to change its library material selection or objection process. 

Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist. 

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