While George’s adventures encouraged my own creativity with some household items, and an unasked-for emptying of my mother’s makeup bag, I did not attempt to poison my grandmother with any of the end results.
Perhaps this was because a) my grandmother, known by all as “granny in Africa”, lived many, many miles away from my Devonshire home, or even b) she was the very opposite of poor George’s granny - who allegedly was not only grumpy and mean, but also had “pale brown teeth, and a mouth puckered up likes a dog’s bottom”. In contrast, my granny had a beautiful smile and was more fun than anyone else I knew.
I would suggest however, that actually, granny in Africa was never faced with the risk of poisoning by lipstick and chilli sauce because, even at the age of 6, I knew that fictional book characters were for my entertainment, not to be copied or to become role models for a whole future generations of evil chemists.
Just as I didn’t venture into murderous medicine making, nor did I ever run away like another of my childhood fictional friends Peter Pan, or join a pirate crew (both Pippi Longstocking of the eponymous series and Jim Hawkins of Treasure Island).
I would think all this was obvious, and there should certainly be no need to state that, once I hit my teenage years, I still never actually got around to murdering anyone, let alone a priest or a stranger, despite Jean Anouilh’s Becket ou l’honneur de Dieu and Albert Camus’ L’Étranger both being part of my French Literature required reading list. In fact, my French teacher would likely attest, the only murder I managed in those lessons was of the French language itself.
It seems obvious - reading about murderers and runaways did not influence me to become either of these things, yet currently libraries and book stores in Aotearoa New Zealand are regularly facing complaints about the books on their shelves, with offended adults calling for books to be removed from shelves on account of their “unacceptable content”.
It’s not just the books themselves people are getting up in arms about, but also the matter of who is reading them to our tamariki in our libraries. There seems to be a belief, a misplaced and completely incorrect one I might add, that seeing a drag queen in a library will somehow make a child do something or become something that some people don’t like.
Yes, that last sentence is vague - because actually, I have no idea what the perceived issue is. Are they worried that children will rush home and steal their mother’s lipstick and heels? And if so - why is that a concern? Do these angry complainants actually think so little of our rangatahi and tamariki and their sense of identity and self that they really think listening to someone reading a story will make them change their very nature and being? If that were true - I would be rushing to the library right now to borrow any and every book on tidy bedrooms for my 12-year-old.
I have seen numerous social media posts recently, bordering on the hysterical, demanding libraries stick to issuing books (presumably not ones about LGBQTIA+ issues or anything else ‘unsuitable’). They don’t want drag queens in public spaces, and threats of boycotts and potential violence have sadly meant some events have been cancelled across the motu.
To me, that’s a shame. Shame on the people calling for these boycotts, and demanding our children are sheltered from anything, or anyone, different to themselves. Stopping drag queens coming to our libraries, or banning books that represent members of our rainbow community only changes one thing - our tamariki’s mental health - and for the worse, not the better. Also - side note - better get rid of all the Shakespeare too, the art of drag is traced back to his plays after all.
Libraries are safe spaces and need to remain so. Books are the places where our imaginations can roam freely, and where sometimes we can find characters we relate to, who make us feel welcome, seen and loved. Taking them away and banning Rainbow Storytime doesn’t change people’s sexuality or identity, but it does make some of our most vulnerable young people feel ashamed, frightened, unworthy or unseen.
It doesn’t matter who is reading to our tamariki, or what they are reading about. Children aren’t at risk of learning hate or bad behaviour from books, but they are at risk of learning that from the angry adults currently shouting a message of intolerance.
Ilona Hanne is a Taranaki-based journalist who covers breaking and community news from across the region. She has worked for NZME since 2011.
