Scholastic president Ellie Berger committed to helping teachers get materials deemed inappropriate for kids into students’ hands.
Book publisher Scholastic announced a “Read with Pride” campaign, providing educators a list of “LGBTQIA+ stories” for “kids and teens” and vowed to use company resources to fight efforts by local school districts and parents to determine what content is appropriate for students.
In its section on “why it’s essential to support LGBTQIA+ youth,” Scholastic states that almost 10 percent of teens in the United States are “lesbian, gay, bi, or trans,” that “about half (52%)” of all Americans who fall under the “LGBTQIA+” umbrella are “people of color,” and that a quarter of children and teens who fit that description “identify outside of the gender binary.”
The guide includes a glossary with terms such as “allocishet,” which the publishing company describes as “a term combining ‘allosexual/alloromantic,’ ‘cisgender,’ and ‘heterosexual/heteroromantic’ that is used as shorthand to describe people whose gender and sexuality are privileged by society” and “two-spirit,” which means “an umbrella term specifically for Native American/First Nations/Indigenous people who do not identify within the colonialist gender binary.”
In its recommendations for educators of young children and teens, Scholastic emphasized that the very act of teaching is itself political and is meant to impress a certain ideology on students.
“Books and literature are never neutral,” the guide states. “By engaging with queer literature for children and young adults, you are disrupting the status quo that implies being cisgender, heterosexual, and allosexual are the default. You are showing children an expanded way of thinking and being that validates all children and people.”
Later on, the guide bemoans the decisions of school districts to remove, for instance, graphic content from sections of school libraries meant for the youngest students.
“Unfortunately, many communities are experiencing significant pushback to supporting the rights and needs of queer youth and the inclusion of queer literature in classrooms and libraries,” the guide reads. “If you or anyone you know needs them, make sure to utilize the links to mental health and censorship hotlines included in this guide.”
Scholastic has on its website a section for “LGBTQIA+ Children’s Books” that includes 133 items with notes explaining the particular age range for which the titles are suited. The recommendations begin at the pre-k level.
Scholastic had previously allowed schools to omit certain topics — like such “LGBTQIA+” issues — from their book fair offerings, but in the fall of 2023, it went back on that decision. Company president Ellie Berger promised that the publisher would help educators work around school-district decisions.
“We will find an alternate way to get a greater range of books into the hands of children,” she said. “We remain committed to the books in this collection and support their sale throughout our distribution channels,” vowing to use her company’s resources to fight against school-district policies addressing what materials are appropriate for children.
School districts across the country have in recent years removed sexually explicit books from K-12 curricula or school libraries, including titles like Gender Queer, which includes graphic descriptions and drawings of minors engaging in sexual relations. Though its author has said in the past that the book was not intended for children, it has still been found in school libraries.
Another graphic novel, Flamer, includes sexually explicit drawings, detailed descriptions of pornography, and language referencing sex acts. Flamer, like Gender Queer, has appeared in public-school libraries.