Maricopa County Library Stocking Up On LGBTQ+, Anti-Racist Children’s Books

Maricopa County Library Stocking Up On LGBTQ+, Anti-Racist Children’s Books

By Corinne Murdock |

The Maricopa County Public Library is stocking up on controversial LGBTQ+ and anti-racist children’s books.

Children’s books put on display at the libraries included those that teach that systemic racism is real, and that LGBTQ+ lifestyles and ideologies are healthy and cause for celebration. 

Several of the LGBTQ+ and anti-racist books offered were board books: thick, durable picture books intended for infants through children up to four years old.

The controversial children’s books included the “Pronoun Book,” “My Two Dads,” “I’m Not a Girl,” “Antiracist Baby,” “Me & My Dysphoria Monster,” “My Maddy, “Call Me Max,” “Sparkle Boy,” “Jacob’s School Play: Starring He, She, and They” “10,000 Dresses,” “Jacob’s Room to Choose,” “Stella Brings the Family,” “Love Makes a Family,” “Lovely,” “Grandad’s Camper,” “What Riley Wore,” “My Rainbow,” “Prince & Knight,” “And Tango Makes Three,” “Mommy, Mama, and Me,” “Julian is a Mermaid,” “King & King,” “One Family,” “In Our Mothers’ House,” “Happy in Our Skin,” “Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress,” “Jacob’s New Dress,” “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” “Home at Last,” “This Day in June,” “Fred Gets Dressed,” “When Aidan Became a Brother,” “My Shape is Sam,” “Adventures With My Daddies,” “Papa, Daddy, 7 Riley,” “Except When They Don’t,” “Jack (Not Jackie),” “Mr. Watson’s Chickens,” “Old MacDonald Had a Baby,” “Rainbow: a First Book of Pride,” “One of a Kind, Like Me,” “Sam is My Sister,” “A Plan For Pops,” “From Archie to Zack,” “Bye Bye, Binary,” “My Shadow is Pink,” “It Feels Good to Be Yourself,” “The Truly Brave Princesses,” “The Bread Pet,” “Peanut Goes For the Gold,” and “Patrick’s Polka Dot Tights.”

LGBTQ and anti-racist children’s board books featured in a Maricopa County Public Library.

In “Call Me Max,” a little girl dressed like a boy scares another little girl as she enters the bathroom; her peer believes the little girl is actually a boy.

“When I went to the girls’ bathroom, a girl ran out,” read the book. “She thought I was a boy. I didn’t mean to scare her. But I liked that she thought I was a boy.”

In “Me & My Dysphoria Monster,” the protagonist grapples with his gender identity. 

“Sometimes people are told they are a boy when actually that person knows they are a girl,” stated the book. “Or sometimes people are told they are a girl when they know they are a boy.” 

The book then advises the reader that a “gender dysphoria monster” may visit, and warns that it “doesn’t like to be ignored.” The book teaches the reader that children who ignore this gender dysphoria monster will only result in it growing bigger, and that the only remedy for it is to identify as the opposite gender. The moment of triumph between the little boy and the “gender dysphoria monster” was when he was allowed to join the girls’ soccer team.

In “Antiracist Baby,” children are taught that they must see other people’s races rather than be “color-blind,” that not every race is treated equally in society, and that they should always be watching out for instances of racism. It also included depictions of same-sex couples, teaching that no lifestyles are better or worse.

Some of these controversial books were declared “award-winning” works at one point by the American Library Association’s (ALA) Stonewall Book Awards. The award-granting organization has issued awards for LGBTQ+ works since 1971, but only began issuing awards to children’s and young adult books since 2010. 

Awards were granted to: “10,000 Dresses” (2010), “Mommy, Mama, and Me” (2010), “Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress” (2014), “This Day in June” (2014), “Julian Is a Mermaid” (2019), “When Aidan Became a Brother” (2020), and “Grandad’s Camper” (2022).

Some of the younger children’s books were given special recognition with their inclusion on the 2023 Rainbow Book List, organized by the ALA’s Rainbow Round Table. The list includes nearly 200 books discussing LGBTQ+ ideology published between 2021 to present. 

“The importance of this list (and others like it) cannot be understated, especially in a time when we are seeing a record number of efforts to ban both materials and support for LGBTQIA+ young people and their families,” stated the ALA. “The suppression of these books is a detriment to all youth, and we cannot ignore the damage these challenges are having on the young people in our society.”

In addition to the ALA’s Stonewall Book Awards and Rainbow Book List, there’s the Walter Dean Myers Award and the Lambda Literary Award.

Click an image in the gallery below for more images:

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

Corporations With The “Best Of Intentions” Should Consider Sources When Making School Funding Decisions

Corporations With The “Best Of Intentions” Should Consider Sources When Making School Funding Decisions

By Loretta Hunnicutt |

Recently, the Arizona Attorney General settled civil rights cases involving Uber Eats, Postmates, and DoorDash in a case he was corporations with the “best of intentions” doing the “wrong thing.” The “wrong thing,” in this case, was offering  “price distinctions based on a person’s race.”

The corporations in question planned on waiving delivery fees for black-owned restaurants. The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) found that the plan squarely violated equal access laws and the corporations were charged with public accommodations discrimination based on race.

The AGO alleged that the corporations unlawfully discriminated against non-Black owned restaurants and their patrons, in violation of the Arizona Civil Rights Act (ACRA).

“Even with the best of intentions, corporations can do the wrong thing. Altering the price of goods or services based on race is illegal,” said the Attorney General in a press release. “My office opened these investigations and pursued these settlements to protect civil rights and ensure businesses offer their services and products based on equal and neutral criteria.”

It is with the same good intentions that companies are doing the wrong thing across the country by funding “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” and “anti-racist” programs in school districts.

There is little doubt that the average company participating in the promotion of programs based on the aforementioned buzz words believe that they are advancing civil rights and social harmony. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. The Critical Race-based programs are creating deep divides and distrust in communities just as the Critical theorists intended.

Given that the majority of corporations exist for the most part because of capitalism, it is hard to conceive that they would ever knowingly support programs based on Western-Marxist philosophy, but that is exactly what they are doing.

Some more cynical observers suspect that the mega-corps are funding the “antiracist movement” in order to divide the middle- and lower-classes and thus keep them conquered. While the cynics might find a rare case, for the majority of companies it is the trust they have in educators that is driving their funding decision-making.

As it stands, corporations with the best of intentions are doing the wrong thing and creating nightmares for parents and children. I have confidence that this is not the intended outcome.

Contrary to the implications made by “antiracists,” parents are not objecting to “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” and “anti-racist” programs in school districts because they are bigots. It is quite the opposite: they do not want their children growing up to be the segregationists – the bigots – the Critical Race Theory-based proponents want them to be.

Companies have mostly relied on national and local chambers that mostly relied local educational organizations to decide where and what educational programs they funded. In the past, that process delivered good outcomes. Now, with the over-representation of the National Education Association by a wide margin on local school boards and state organizations like the Arizona School Board Association, the product of corporate spending on our classrooms can only lead to a proliferation of anti-capitalist, anti-corporatist, anti-American pedagogy.

As a result, it is essential that the small businesses that are the backbone of middle-America and the large corporations that benefit the most from them re-evaluate the resources they rely on to determine to whom those charitable dollars flow.

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