No, This Book Is Not Satire
A new picture book from a Moms for Liberty member depicting the group's sick obsession with a false narrative about teachers
Note: I don’t tend to drop trigger warnings on content because I suspect my readers know what they’re in for when it comes to talking about book bans. But this post has some deeply disturbing anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ+ images in it. If that is something you’re not in a place to read, save it for later or have someone you trust to read and share the information with you.
We know Moms For Liberty has been removing books from schools, and we also know they’ve been trying to get books into the schools–their latest Moms For Libraries pick was Glenn Beck’s Chasing Embers, a book for which every tween reader is clamoring. But those are far from the only bookish activities occupying the time of the right-wing Hate Group members’ time. Some are getting into the publishing game themselves.
Hernando County, Florida, has been a long-time player in the book banning game. Kara Floyd, chair of the county’s chapter of Moms For Liberty, carried out her marching orders starting in fall 2021. Her first appearance before the local school board included complaints over two books by Alex Gino, Looking for Alaska by John Green, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. She promised the board that those were but the start. At that November meeting, she and her fellow Moms were working through 128 other books on a list to see if they were in Hernando County Schools, too. At this point in the book banning wave, challenges by Moms For Liberty’s national chapter in Brevard County, Florida, schools were the trigger for challenges elsewhere in the state and country. The list of 128 books Floyd claimed to have were the books rated four or five on the group’s book “ratings” system BookLooks.
That was only the preview of what was to come in Hernando County Schools. The district found itself not only being told to remove books, to which they acquiesced both publicly and privately, but the board turned over, too. Decisions about the educational needs and access of students were in the hands of newly elected members who were quite cozy with Floyd and her husband Monty. Monty is the Hernando County Moms for Liberty vice-chair and failed school board candidate in the 2022 election. Take a look at how much Monty spent compared to everyone else in the campaign, and know that he created videos in the run up to the election that contributed to the removal of five books from the school district.
Book challenges and attacks on the library continued in the district. Titles yanked from the district include The Handmaid’s Tale, The Bluest Eye, All The Things We Do in the Dark, and dozens more. While those titles are publicly known to have been removed by the board, they’re not the only ones. Other titles were quietly removed from elementary schools in the district for noncompliance with Florida’s HB 1069. That bill, which is currently the target of a massive lawsuit filed by several publishing houses, alongside parents and students, demands schools remove materials from collections that have “sexual content.” The educational value of that material has no bearing in that matter. As a result, Hernando County Schools removed the following books:
What kind of sexual content is inside No David or Draw Me a Star you might ask? Illustrations of butts. To think this was before the headlines out of Indian River School District about sexy goblin butts.
Hernando County Schools were also among those that implemented an opt-in policy for their libraries. Recall that there is a difference between an opt-in policy and an opt-out policy. The former means that the default is no access unless permission is granted; the latter, that access is default unless permission is revoked. Both are forms of censorship, but the first is intended to trick parents into it, where the second forces them to do a little work for it. Even in Florida, so often depicted as a backwards thinking state about book banning and censorship (and not about the gerrymandering, voter suppression, and disenfranchisement that allows the power that is to be what it is), very few parents actually opt their kids out of libraries.
Hernando County is an opt-in district. By default, students have no ability to use the school library unless their parents permit them to. As of this week, only about 38% of parents have even returned the permission form to grant or deny access to libraries for their students, per data acquired by Florida Freedom to Read Project. That means 62% of an entire county school district has no school library access by default. Of course that’s not representative of parental wishes, especially when you look at the responses from those who did return the form: 83% of those students have full permission to use the school library, 16% were limited to grade-level content, and only 1% were unable to access the library at all.
Let’s come back to the Floyds, though, who have made it their mission to remove the books they deem “too California” for Florida students.
Last month, Kara and Monty Floyd published their first book together (Kara published two separately about gender essentialism the prior week). It’s called Can I Be a Pirate, and you can get it on Amazon. According to the keyword stuffed title of the book, it is “A cautionary tale about groomers, wokeness, and the potential damage it can cause if parents choose to ignore warning signs and symbolism. ... the challenges posed by woke ideology.” It is the first in a purported series the couple plans to pen called “Read with Your Parents (A book series designed to help families navigate and address the challenges posed by woke ideology.)”
The 26 page book is rated for readers 12-18 years old. Here’s the full description of the book from Amazon:
In this thought-provoking book, explore Wally's journey through a modern public school environment where his dreams of becoming a pirate, a cat, or a wolf evolve into a desire to be a girl, influenced by his progressive teacher. This narrative delves into the complexities of today’s educational landscape, highlighting the impact of contemporary ideologies on young minds. It serves as a crucial reminder for parents to engage in open and meaningful conversations with their children about their experiences and discussions in school. Through Wally's story, the book offers valuable insights and prompts essential dialogues about the role of educators and the importance of parental involvement in navigating personal and sensitive topics.
Not sure what’s going on with Wally’s fingers in the illustration–no credit is given to any particular illustrator, so the assumption is one of the Floyds made this and/or utilized AI to make it. This is where we begin with a tale that then tells us what it is Wally dreams about.
Wally’s dreams involve two career paths that are not career paths. He cannot be a pirate unless he’s up for a life of crime, and as of writing, despite claims that there are children who identify as cats and use litter boxes in schools, humans cannot be cats for a career.
These two pages are from the sample on Amazon, but as you could surmise, this story is not about the little boy’s impractical dreams. It’s about the teacher he has who is not only portrayed as trans, but who is also portrayed as a drag queen, a pedophile, and a groomer. No, really.
For one thing, absolutely no classroom is decorated like this. That would cost the educator way too much time and money–two things that are not in abundance in that field. Absolutely no educator would have a sticker or magnet that simply reads “I’m your mom now,” either; that’s half the quote that goes viral every Pride month inviting kids whose parents or guardians are unaccepting to find support in a safe adult.
The fear mongering here around social emotional learning and comprehensive sexuality education (that’s not a typo) is hard to miss. Putting an image of an educator with text about their being “non-binary” and “trans,” in front of a lesson on mental health is intended to be angering.
Talk of God should not be in any public school, so Wally’s got that right (even if the state of Texas is going to offer to pay school districts for every one of their students if the district adapts their Christianized curriculum). But it’s here we get the subtle nod to the teacher being in the industry for access to photos of children.
At Wally’s school, there are apparently well-attended drag queen shows. It doesn’t look to me like those kids are being indoctrinated nor that they’re being harmed. If that was the goal of this illustration of children who look absolutely delighted by the mid-school day drag festivities, it’s a swing and a miss.
If you head over to Amazon’s reviews, you’ll see there’s another page. It’s a picture of a spaghetti-covered rendering of God who will forever guide children in his love.
Interestingly, one thing that the Floyds do seem to know how to do, despite claims of the otherwise, is use and showcase pronouns. Take a look at this page from the trailer on Kara’s YouTube channel:
On release day, Monty expressed his excitement for the book to be out there. In a series of three Tweets, he shared that the book is not anti-teacher. In fact, the book has a warning to the teachers to do their due diligence and throw their colleagues under the bus in the name of “anti-wokeness.”
Can I Be a Pirate is not a work of satire nor humor. It’s a “cautionary” tale, and that’s clear at every step of the way. But the book has landed atop the Amazon charts for “children’s humor.” Why? Because the book is going bananas with the Moms for Liberty crew, as well as those who want to make it clear this book’s intent, aims, and purpose are to do more damage to an already beleaguered profession. Anyone with passing knowledge of Amazon knows those granular categories aren’t accurate nor necessarily big playing fields. Not to mention that new books aren’t robust in early August, so the competition was far from stiff.
Monty’s tune is a little bit different when he’s quoted in a blog post for the company which “published” the book. You will not be surprised to hear there are no news stories covering the so-called eight incidents of educators grooming children in the Hernando County School District. One teacher was accused of doing so because she showed a Disney film (remember that?) and another teacher left the district because he did not think he could teach in an environment where so much as suggesting gay people exist would ruin his life.
The comments on that post are a who’s who of book banners.
The Floyds continue to hold power over the access to taxpayer funded education in Hernando County. As funny as it is to dunk on this book–and it is–what’s concerning is that this book will get traction from this small, vocal, well-funded contingent of people. Not only will books and the access to equitable education be harmed with students once again at a tremendous disadvantage to their peers in other districts inside and especially beyond the state, but it sends so many inaccurate, harmful, and dangerous messages about education and about LGBTQ+ people.
The same LGBTQ+ people being systematically eradicated from those very schools. It won’t be long before the Floyds use this book to amplify their message with the goal of doing what’s been done successfully in districts elsewhere: get all of the LGBTQ+ books either labeled or banned all together.
If nothing else, this book shows why it’s important to leave the work of experts in a field to the experts in that field. YA readers have more intelligence than this 26 page book suggests that they do and frankly, so do the younger children who have literally never seen a teacher who looks like the one rendered on these pages.
This is what we’ve been up against and it’s what we continue to be up against.
All of this also begs the question: just how long before the Floyds and Moms try to get this book into school libraries and then cry book ban when trained professionals don’t approve its purchase?
Looks like they’re already on it.
