Nikhil Out Loud by Maulik Pancholy – a book review

In this coming of age story, a group of conservative parents protest a 13 year old gay student getting the lead role in the school play. Can you imagine conservatives doing this?

I found this book on display at the Tullis Library in New Caney.  It can also be found at the Conroe library and both libraries in The Woodlands.

In the story, Nikhil is a voice actor for a hit animated series Raj Reddy in Outer Space.  His mom moves him to a small town where she grew up, where he meets and gets to know his grandparents.  The story follows his journey in getting to know his grandparents and making new friends, while working through his own insecurities.  This is a coming-of-age story.  Nikhil is cast in the lead role in the school musical and comes out as gay to a newspaper reporter (interviewing him about his role).  With permission, the reporter prints Nikhil’s sexuality in the story.  Nikhil faces various reactions from friends and family. 

From the inside flap:

“Nikhil’s fame lands him the lead in the school musical, but he’s terrified that everyone will realize he’s a fraud once they find out he has stage fright.  And when a group of conservative parents start to protest having an openly gay actor in a starring role, Nikhil feels like his life would be easier if only he could be Raj Reddy full-time.”

“A group of conservative parents start to protest having an openly gay actor in the starring role…”  Seriously?  I’m trying to think back to my high school years in the 90’s and as I recall, there were gay kids and nobody was particularly worried about them.  Nobody.  Protesting a gay kid?  No.  This is not even remotely believable. 

Now if there was a TEACHER at the school pressuring kids to consider a different gender or teaching kids about sex, and a group of conservative parents were protesting the TEACHER doing this, that would be believable because that is something that is actually happening that parents are actually concerned about. 

Nobody is protesting gay kids.  It’s just not happening.  This is what is called propaganda, and it’s becoming all too common in the books I’m finding in the children’s section of the library.  This book was published about six months ago.  A sticker on the spine of the book says, “05/2023,” which leads me to believe, it was purchased and placed in the library a few days before I picked it up.  This is where we are.  I feel badly for any gay kids who pick this book up and get this false impression about conservatives.

The reality is that conservatives are not a monolith.  Conservatives can be: gay, straight, Christian, Atheist, Jewish, Muslim, married, single.  We are a diverse group of people who share a somewhat common set of values.  We do not agree on everything, but we agree on a lot of things.  Interestingly enough, we can usually work together even if we disagree because one of our core values is tolerance for differences of opinion and open dialogue.

While I was block-walking with the petition, I spoke with many people who weren’t Christian but were conservative.  They looked at my books and signed my petition because even though we may not agree about the Creator of the Universe (or if there is a creator), we agree that these books bring values we all want into our libraries.

Back to the book:  After the article was published, which shares that Nikhil is gay, a mom writes a letter to various parents to get them worked up.  Amazingly, she actually gets a group of parents to protest him at the school auditorium before the play begins.  We are supposed to believe that a conservative mom did this, AND she got other parents to go along with it??  If there was actually a town nutter who did this, no way she gets a group of parents to go along with it. 

It gets even better.  A conservative parent is arrested for spray painting their slogan, “Not at our school! No way! No how!” on the side of the school.  I find this to be preposterous.

We need to consider the consequences of demonizing a group of people as this book does.  We are seeing this all across various media platforms, so I shouldn’t be surprised to find it in library books.

It is interesting though, isn’t it?  We had to ask permission to place DONATED books from the conservative point of view into the library, and this book, vilifying conservatives, was intentionally purchased from an approved vendor?!  This is why it’s not only important to get the Tuttle Twins and BRAVE books in but also to get them approved as vendors so the library can buy from them directly.

How do you feel about this? Reach out to your county commissioner. Find your commissioner in the link below.

(Edited to add: Keep in mind the commissioners are limited in how they can make changes, and we believe they are concerned. When you call, please do not assume he is the enemy.)

https://mctx.org/departments/departments_a_-_c/commissioner_s_court/county_commissioners/index.php