While the adults bicker over possibly banning books and movies from public libraries and removing book displays for Pride and Black History months, a 10-year-old Lafayette girl is taking steps to ensure LGBTQ-themed and banned books remain available.
Cora Newton is creating what appears to be the area’s first Little Queer Library.
It will join dozens of Little Free Libraries in the city, where the owners offer free books for the taking, asking only that borrowers, if they’re able, leave used books behind in their place.
Sporting plaited pigtails and a tie-dyed T-shirt, Cora on Friday painted her Little Queer Library with a sun and rainbow and an LGBTQ-inclusive flag.
Cora had been wanting to host a Little Free Library for some time. The idea for a Little Queer Library popped up after she and her mom, Kati Salts, attended a Lafayette Public Library Board of Control meeting a few months ago, where the board discussed banning a book.
The board ended up not banning "This Book is Gay” after Library Director Danny Gillane instead said he would move all nonfiction teen books to the adult nonfiction section. The board also voted recently to restrict to those 17 and older a documentary film about a man who arranged same-sex sexual liaisons for Hollywood stars.
The latest restriction came May 31 when Gillane told library managers to discontinue book displays about LGBTQ topics and specific segments of the population. The policy was — coincidentally, he said — effective at the start of Pride Month.
Actions by the board and library director, Cora said, may make it harder for people to find LGBTQ books in the library.
“I think there should be all kinds of books in the library,” she said. “There are a lot of people that are LGBTQ. I think people would like to see books they’re like, too.”
Cora, an avid reader whose favorite book is “Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods,” wants her Little Queer Library to offer LGBTQ-themed books as well as books that have been banned elsewhere. Many of the most-banned books in the past year are LGBTQ themed.
Although the Library Board hasn’t banned any books, two were challenged by St. Martin Parish resident Michael Lunsford, executive director of Citizens for a New Louisiana, which has an office in downtown Lafayette. Two board members, including President Robert Judge, voted to remove “This Book is Gay,” which Lunsford described as pornography, from the library system.
Judge failed in an attempt to remove librarians from a three-person committee that reviews requests to censor books. Instead, the board voted to leave one librarian and appoint two board members to the committee.
Cora said she hopes her Little Queer Library has an effect on Library Board members.
“I hope that if the library sees this there will really be no point in banning LGBTQ books and so they won’t actually do it,” she said.
There’s at least one other Little Queer Library in the country, in Waltham, Massachusetts. Since February, it has been vandalized and books stolen at least four times. Salts is prepared for the worst.
“It’s probably going to get vandalized or destroyed,” she said.
When that’s happened with the Massachusetts library, Salts said, the owners said they’ve received increased support.
On Friday, Cora’s Little Queer Library received its first book donation, a copy of “Bye Bye, Binary” by Eric Geron. Anyone wishing to donate books may drop them off at Sans Paquet, 501 Jefferson St. in downtown Lafayette.
Salts said they’re in the process of finalizing a location for the Little Queer Library.
Ten most challenged books of 2021
- "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe.
- "Lawn Boy" by Jonathan Evison.
- "All Boys Aren’t Blue" by George M. Johnson.
- "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Perez.
- "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas.
- "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie.
- "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" by Jesse Andrews.
- The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison.
- "This Book is Gay" by Juno Dawson.
- "Beyond Magenta" by Susan Kuklin.
(Source: The American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom)