Story hours: Knowledge is power
Actor Kirk Cameron made waves recently when he hosted a story hour at the Indianapolis Public Library for his children’s book, “As You Grow,” with thousands reportedly in attendance. Cameron’s faith-based book is about the biblical fruits of the Spirit.
Cameron tweeted that 2,500 people attended the Indianapolis event in December, saying it was the largest crowd the library had ever seen. The library issued a rebuttal tweet, claiming that only 750 people attended and it was not, in fact, the largest crowd the library had ever seen. However, either way you slice it, that’s a large crowd for a story hour.
So why all the commotion over a story hour? Well, Cameron hosted the event to prove a point. According to Cameron’s publisher, Brave Books, at least 50 public libraries rejected Cameron’s request to host a story hour at their location, with the Indianapolis library and another near New York City only agreeing to host the story hour after Cameron threatened legal action. Yet, many of the same libraries that rejected Cameron and his book routinely host drag queen story hours or queer time story hours.
The Rochambeau Public Library in Providence, R.I. is one library that rejected Cameron’s request. A library representative told him, “No, we will pass on having you run a program in our space. We are a very queer-friendly library. Our messaging does not align… You can fill out the form to reserve space, to run the program in our space — but we won’t run your program.”
It is interesting that the library felt the messaging of Cameron’s book was not appropriate, even though it’s not a book targeting any group of people but instead is about cultivating virtues such as love, joy, peace and patience. Pretty non-controversial if you ask me — the world could use a little more of those. Apparently the Rochambeau library does not agree.
Cameron received similar responses from other libraries. This is while these libraries are happy to allow events in which kids are taught that certain forms of expressing one’s sexuality are morally good. Without even getting into the appropriateness of such events, it’s safe to say that if events promoting a certain brand of sexual ethics are allowed, it is only fair that Cameron’s book promoting biblical ethics be allowed. If a library is going to allow one, it can’t rightly deny the other. What about free speech and the free exchange of ideas in the public square? But it is the same typical double standard we see all too often today.
“This is proof more than ever, we are getting destroyed in the battle for the hearts and minds of our children… Publicly funded libraries are green-lighting ‘gender marker and name change clinics’ while denying a story time that would involve the reading of a book that teaches biblical wisdom,” Cameron said regarding the repeated rejections. “How much more clear can it get? We have to start fighting back or we will lose our kids and this country.”
The man has a point. Children are our future. As anyone who has kids or has been around kids will tell you, kids are like little sponges. They are constantly soaking up information from their world around them — the things that are said and done. The information we feed our kids matters. The values we teach our kids matter. If we don’t purposely teach them right from wrong and truth from fiction, the world will be happy to make up the difference. Whether it’s the things kids watch on TV, the music they listen to, what they hear from their friends at school or what they hear at an event at the library, it all has influence. So we had better be aware of what information they are taking in.
This segues into another recent story — last week in New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy signed an “information literacy” law that requires schools to teach K-12 students how to identify “disinformation” in the name of protecting “democracy.” The bill received broad support from Republicans and Democrats. Schools will be expected to teach things such as “critical thinking and using information resources,” “the difference between facts, points of view and opinions,” and “the economic, legal and social issues surrounding the use of information.”
I’m all for teaching kids to think critically and not just blindly accept any information they come across, so the intent behind the law seems commendable. However, adding another mandate for public schools and another expectation for them to meet might not be particularly helpful, especially as schools are still dealing with catching up on learning after the pandemic. Teachers probably will not appreciate another thing added to their already full plates. Also, I would like to think that things like distinguishing facts from opinions are already part of schools’ English or social studies curriculums, or at least they should be. Then there is the tendency of legislators to tell schools, “Oh, you have to teach this” without providing the training, curriculum and funding for schools to actually implement it. Not sure if that’s what’s happening here, but I could certainly see it happening.
The other major problem I see is, who is setting the curriculum and determining what is “disinformation”? Are students going to be encouraged to seek the truth for themselves or told what to believe? What ideologies or philosophies are being promoted? It’s one of those things that sounds good in theory, but in practice could be a very different story.
Finally, going back to the Cameron story, I want to give the disclaimer that this column is certainly not meant to be “Pick on Libraries Day.” It’s definitely not fair to say that the libraries that rejected Cameron are representative of public libraries as a whole. Libraries are wonderful places that open up doorways to learning. However, the Cameron story does go to show that our society has increasingly fallen for saying “yes” to the wrong things and “no” to the right things. Also, we can’t expect to snub traditional biblical values and morality and expect there not to be any long-lasting results.
Have a good week!
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