Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

This book puts a secular worldview on display front and center for young children. There are passionate, intelligent messages presented to promote this worldview, such as “The proper defense is that it doesn’t matter if they’re gay. The characters can be who they are… I’m not saying this as a gay man or a gay teacher. I’m saying this as a human being who believes all human beings should be treated with respect.” Followed by claps and cheers. Of course, this doesn’t seem to extend to the Christians who obviously see this issue in a much different light through the lens of the Bible. The only religious characters in the story appear as ignorant, unloving, yelling people. On the flip side, everyone fully supporting homosexuality and other similar topics are presented as brilliant, kind and loving. The rest of the characters are eventually shown as just scared and unaware of what is obviously true. Especially important to parents is the fact that eventually all of the core group of students are shown as being “on the right side” and the story is shown through their eyes. In fact, at one point a child comes out as gay in class and all the kids cheer, celebrate and pat him on the back. As the story unfolds the main character, a young boy, slowly starts to convert his friendship with the new boy into a romantic relationship. This unfolds very slowly. At one point they are playing pinball, with one at each flipper. The friend then pulls them hip-to-hip wraps his arm around him and starts playing that way. This grows and culminates later when they are alone on Valentine’s Day and a romantic scene unfolds that starts with just playing video games, but progresses until sharing chocolates from a heart-shaped box becomes taking chocolates from each other’s mouth to kissing. Once one of the Moms finds out about the relationship she begins to intentionally leave the boys alone each day. Later they are allowed to stay the night together. Each time it is mentioned that they spend at least some of the time kissing. Keep in mind this is all happening with 5th graders… The key teacher in the story is gay and he is seen interacting with his husband. It is mentioned some families have 2 moms, 2 dads, and others who just want to be called “parents”. The terms gay, lesbian, bi, trans, non-binary, LGBTQIA+ are used. In fact by the end of the book you start to feel there are likely only a small percentage of traditional families involved in the school (an untrue picture of the world that would be an easy takeaway for a child). A sample of several other lines that stick out are: “my moms are not happy about someone suddenly trying to ban a queer book in my class”, “teacher is trying to turn us all gay”, “the presence of gay people is not something that should be hidden, but something that should be celebrated”. It is implied Batman and Robin and other superhero teams were gay. The child who came out later offers to kiss another boy at the schoolboard meeting and another child responds that their moms should kiss instead. The core ending scene is very emotional and ends with a passionate speech by the gay teacher where we are left with lessons like homosexuality not being a sin, it being something you are and not something you become, equality being the highest standard we can aspire to. This is followed by an author’s note that gives a brief history of other similar worldview books and authors. Finally, the main character is sneaky, but this is held in a good light consistently because he is “on the right side”. This includes sneaking a book he is not supposed to have, emailing another adult he doesn’t know, inviting a friend over when strictly not allowed, etc. At one point he mentions not following rules he doesn’t believe are fair.