Welcome to our substack!! We are so excited you are here!
Welcome to our substack!! We are so excited you are here!
What are these two crazy moms up to?
Where we got this idea:
We are homeschool moms and avid library users, proud nerds.
When we learned that Brave Books and Kirk Cameron were beginning to host story hours at libraries across the nation, we knew this was something we wanted to be a part of. We saw Kirk Cameron speak on various news shows encouraging families across America to go on the offensive against the woke agenda and take back story hour. We caught the vision and decided to host a story hour here in Montgomery County, Texas.
Our First Story Hour:
Our first story hour will take place this Thursday, January 26th at 10am at the South Regional Branch of the Montgomery County Memorial Library System. We will be reading two Brave Books, As You Grow, by Kirk Cameron; and Surfing Past Fear, by Bethany Hamilton.
We anticipate overflow and have a plan. The library meeting room has a capacity of 100 individuals per the fire marshal. Thankfully, we have permission from the township to use the outdoor read-aloud space located at Town Green Park (next to the library) behind the storybook maze. We are asking that families with older children and adults without children make their way to this space, if we reach capacity, to give families with young children room to gather indoors.
We do have other thoughts, plans and goals, but we are extremely limited on what we are allowed to say at the library. The library indoor event will only be about the read-aloud and the books. However, if you join Shayla at the outdoor overflow space, she will be able to speak freely. After the read-aloud event, we will both join you at the park at noon to speak with you. (The event should only last one hour, but we have the indoor space reserved until noon to allow for extra time and clean up.)
Would You Host a Story Hour?
We hope other moms and dads here in Montgomery County will also catch this vision and begin to host their own story hours at libraries across Montgomery County! It’s easy, and one of our articles will be detailed instructions on how to host your own story hour with links to the Brave Books resources and recommendations. We will also explain in detail how we made a reservation request on our library’s website. If you would like to go ahead and get started, you can find instructions on the Brave Books website:
http://www.bravebooks.com
Reserving a room at your local library in Montgomery County can be done online at countylibrary.org
What Else?
We are grateful to Brave Books and Kirk Cameron for blazing this trail for us to begin a new story hour tradition here in Montgomery County, but do we want to do more? We (Two Moms and Some Books) have been putting our heads together to ask, what more?
Like many of you, we realized that Christian and conservative books seemed to be completely missing from the children’s section of the libraries in our county of Montgomery County in Texas. We would go upstairs and find wonderful Christian fiction in the adult and young adult sections, but it seemed we needed to request any children’s books of this genre from the Harris County Library. We have wondered why this is for quite a while, and we hope that this will change. Part of this substack will be about action recommendations for library patrons who want to see more wholesome, Christian and conservative books in the children’s section of our libraries.
We will also be visiting various libraries and showcasing here on our substack about what we do find. There ARE some children’s Christian and conservative fiction in some of the Montgomery County Libraries. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a “Christian fiction” search function, so these books will be hard to find if you don’t know which ones are there. We plan to do our best to create lists of what we do find, so you can go check those books out. Please send us what you find! Your help will be invaluable. Please also be patient with us, as we are just two moms trying to make a difference in our small way.
What about THOSE books??
(Before we get into this piece, a quick note: Please be kind to our librarians. Our librarians are parents, grandparents, daughters and sons. We believe many librarians are also as concerned as we are about the direction of our culture and choices our libraries have made. Our librarians are not in a position to tell you this. When making a complaint, make sure the librarian you are speaking with understands that you aren’t speaking of them personally, but you are concerned about decisions being made in the library system.)
We would like the books showing sexually explicit pictures in our library to be removed from children’s reach. Currently the visually explicit books we are aware of have been moved upstairs to the YA section, which is a step in the right direction. We want age-appropriate books in age-appropriate hands. We do not ban books. Most reasonable people can agree that there are many distasteful and questionable (we are being generous) historical books that help us remember where we never want to go again. Likewise, today’s books show where we are as a culture. We encourage all parents to go to the library, look at these books, and consider where we are. Encourage your friends to do the same. Many people do not want to believe what is happening.
For books about (or fiction books themed in) gender theory, queer theory, sexuality, critical race theory, etc, we would like to see these books labeled on the spine. The library already labels books with other themes such as thanksgiving, Christmas, dinosaurs, ABCs etc. Likewise, conservative and Christian themed books that are successfully placed in the library could be similarly labeled. We have no interest in deceiving anyone. This would also help patrons find the books they are looking for.
In conclusion, we look around the library and see the culture reflected in the books around us. Unfortunately, this is where we are. Gone are the days when you can send your children to the library to get whatever books they want and bring them home. Parents must be involved in the process. However, if we work together, we hope to have a more diverse selection that includes Christian, (even Evangelical Christian) books, and conservative books for all the children in our community.