I’m a lifelong book nerd. As far back as I can remember, I loved picking out my own books at my school library, or the orgy of joy that was the Scholastic Book Fair. From those days as a quiet kid to my current life as a writer and host of the books podcast "Literary Disco," reading has been the forum for me to adventure and explore without any limitations.

And that's exactly why book banning pisses me off. Why would we take the safest possible place for kids to learn — that silent, thoughtful space between an author and their reader — and start policing it? From a young age I knew that as soon as I had a kid, I would let that little munchkin read whatever it wanted.

Now I have one. My daughter is 10 months old. She can’t read, she can’t speak, and she hasn’t even been able to confidently sit up for more than one season, but this is still her first Banned Books Week. We chose to celebrate by buying her seven of the most banned picture books in America. So what if she can barely understand what’s going on? I’m going to build her library, introduce her to a wide range of books, and most importantly, ignite rage, rebelliousness, and a thirst for reading that will last for years to come.

Sunday: “I Am Jazz” by Jazz Jennings and Jessica Herthel

Amazon, Dial Books

We started our week of banned books with the ultimate realness: a TLC reality show star. Jazz Jennings has been famous for nearly her entire life, and published a picture book in 2014 about the experience of coming into her gender identity as a transgender girl. "I Am Jazz" is told from our heroine’s point of view, describing her friends, hobbies, family, and feelings. Given America's rampant case of transphobia, it's little surprise that a school district in Wisconsin was threatened with a lawsuit for daring to read it to exactly the audience it was written for: elementary school children.

As these are all perfect topics to be describing to a baby (my baby’s current hobby is chasing our cat), "I Am Jazz" was a very sweet introduction to our Banned Books Week project. My daughter was enraptured by all of the smiling faces and the frames of Jazz dancing and swimming like a mermaid. (For even more mermaid goodness, check out " " — one of our favorites that hasn’t had the chance to be banned yet, as it’s brand new and it’s hard for "concerned parents" to keep up). Honestly, Jazz is so normal that this book is borderline boring. She’s just so… ordinary. Which is, of course, the point.

Monday: “King & King” by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland

Amazon, Tricycle Press

"King & King" is a Dutch picture book from 2000 about a tough and common experience: coming out to your super-high-expectations mom. In this case, "mom" is the Queen, and she’s tired of ruling. (I hear you, girl. Leadership is taxing and only Ruth Bader Ginsberg is obligated to serve for life.) Since she’s over it, she sets up one of those "bring me every princess in all the land!" round-robins that I’m sure are super awkward for everyone. Especially if you’re a closeted prince.

Thankfully, one of the princesses brings along her brother (it’s all very

Margaery/Renly/Loras in Westeros, if you get my drift), and the prince weds the other prince. Their wedding is tons of fun, everyone approves, and now the kingdom has two wonderful kings. It’s sweet and simple and very much reflects the society I’d like to raise a kid in. Parents in Massachusetts disagreed, arguing that elementary school was not the time to be introducing their children to "homosexual themes."

My kid's handling it just fine. She loves faces these days and was incredibly engaged with the pictures of the two princes gazing lovingly at each other. She spent a large amount of time pointing at their noses, proving that babies don’t care who you love — they’re just working on identifying facial features. No need for fretting parents to stress out about what princes do in their royal bedrooms. Mazel tov, you guys.

Tuesday: “Where’s Waldo?” by Martin Handford

Amazon, Candlewick

I was extremely excited to pick up "Where’s Waldo?" next. This classic book of giant, complex illustrations was first banned from a school district in 1993 for one simple reason: sideboob. Picture this: One day, an innocent woman is sunbathing on a very crowded beach and undoes her bikini top to prevent tan lines. Just as she’s relaxing, someone jams a cone of soft-serve (not a euphemism, folks) in the middle of her back. The poor sunbather understandably startles upwards, exposing a breast the size of a poppy seed and a nipple the size of a… poppy seed nipple?

Ready to corrupt my fragile daughter’s delicate sensibilities, I ended her morning nursing session to read her this book. She’s only been breastfeeding between five and one million times per day since the minute she was born, so I figured her poor little brain would survive finding the partially nude sunbather. Alas, I discovered that by the time the 30th anniversary of "Where’s Waldo?" was published, enough complaints had been registered that some artist had been commissioned to re-tie the poor woman’s green bikini.

So, instead, my daughter and I had a long educational discussion about the real crime: harassing a poor woman just trying to catch some sun on her day off.

Wednesday: “In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak

Amazon, HarperCollins

My daughter is, so far, an only child. She has not had the experience of a brother running around, while refusing to put a diaper on or peeing in inappropriate places. So I decided it was about time for her to experience Maurice Sendak’s "In the Night Kitchen."

Unlike a lot of the books on my list for the week, it is very obvious why this book freaks puritanical parents out. Our hero, Mickey, is completely nude by page two. There are many, many images of him full-frontal flying through the air. This is, of course, because Maurice Sendak was a fearless illustrator who didn’t give a shit what adults thought of his book.

In 1977 it was challenged for "nudity without a purpose," which, frankly, just cracks me up. How can you say that with a straight face to the little boy you are reading it to, when you were probably just moments ago screaming, "PAJAMAS ON BY THE COUNT OF THREE!" as he enjoyed the sensation of wandering around in the buff?

When I read this to my daughter I chose to focus on the frame where Mickey sheds his clothes yet again and says, "God bless milk and god bless me!" It was the perfect time to teach her a very important lesson. Any guy who gets naked and immediately talks about how awesome he is is someone to roll your eyes at, my darling.

Thursday: “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle

Amazon, Henry Holt

The tale of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" is a cautionary one about the decline of fact-checking.

I’ll be damned if my baby makes a mistake as stupid as the one the Texas Education Board made back in 2010. The state banned this incredibly simple picture book (here’s a spoiler: "Red Bird, Red Bird, what do you see? I see a Yellow Duck looking at me/ Yellow Duck, Yellow Duck, what do you see…") because its author, Bill Martin Jr., has a name awfully similar to the Bill Martin who published "Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation." It’s very well-known that ducks and dogs hate capitalism and thereby America, so, you know, an easy mistake.

I like to take all book banning very seriously, so I read "Brown Bear" to my daughter searching for something truly offensive. I must say, after reading it about a dozen times (she loves it) I began to feel paranoid. Everyone in this "story" is watching each other with cold intent. They’re all spies. It’s the "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" of board books. We also became focused on the jarring Blue Horse — the least realistically rendered character of them all. This led to a long discussion of how this is probably a Trojan horse and that no daughter of mine will ever be that easily fooled.

Friday: “And Tango Makes Three” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell



Amazon, Little Simon

As the week drew to a close, I knew it was time to pull out the big gay guns. The true story of two male penguins raising their daughter, "And Tango Makes Three," was published in 2005. Both the penguins and the book came out long after I’d been a zoo-animal-loving kid, so I was very eager to read about this habitat of sin.

What resulted was my daughter pointing at some penguins and then playing on the floor while my husband and I cried reading aloud the heartbreaking moment where our boys, Roy and Silo, dutifully make a nest and sit on a rock, attempting to hatch it like an egg. I cried even more when I got to the author’s note that implied that Betty and Porkey, the parents who gave up their egg for Roy and Silo to raise, had been through more than one baby penguin stillbirth.

This little masterpiece goes out of its way to show many different family configurations in the illustrations — single moms, grandmas with kids, same-sex parents, and I’m pretty sure there’s a breastfeeding monkey — so you know it’s taking its mission seriously. I can’t wait for my daughter to get past the baby sign language for "bird" so I can teach her all about infertility, adoption, miscarriage, being a true ally like penguin-keeper Mr. Gramzay, and these super sweet, gay Chinstrap penguins. Hurry up and grow up, kid, so you can appreciate this book!

(As a fun side note, Singapore librarians didn’t really know what to do with this book so it’s shelved in the adult section. I’m for it. I know more than a few adults who need to get hip to this message.)

Saturday: “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss

Amazon, $13.46 Random House

Sometimes, when I’m lying in the dark worrying about one problem or another, I think, "None of this matters since we’re destroying our planet anyway." That’s why I saved the obliterating, depressing "The Lorax" for last. If you’ve forgotten, this is a tale of a jerk who cuts down a whole forest in order to make soft sweaters, thereby ruining an entire ecosystem.

What I’d forgotten is that "The Lorax" is told from the point of view of the villain, the Once-ler. After he’s destroyed the entire planet he has the freaking gall to lecture us: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not." What about YOU, Once-ler? You’re still alive and kicking, nailed inside your tower. Get out and fix what you did, you Baby Booming monster.

"The Lorax" was banned because it could "arguably" turn kids against the logging industry. Arguably? Hell yes. It’s supposed to.



When we put down "The Lorax," finishing off our week-long adventure, I turned to my daughter and said this: "Caring isn’t enough. Once you learn to walk and say more than three words, you have to get some things done. And based on this week, if it’s something that gets your book banned, you’re probably on exactly the right track."



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