A parent of a child in second grade attending McDowell Mountain Elementary School in the Fountain Hills Unified School District was appalled to discover over 10 books in the classroom library inappropriate for children that age. The parent, informed Fountain Hills City Councilman Allen Skillicorn, who referred to the books “woke” and “sexual.”
“As I finished my parent teacher conferences last week, my attention went to the classroom library section of the room,” a parent wrote in an email to Skillicorn. “I often wonder how teachers pick the books to line their classroom shelves. One particular SECOND GRADE classroom in the Fountain Hills Unified School District had the following books in their classroom library:
- We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom – Protesting & Climate Issues
- It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
- Just Ask Be Different Be Brave by Sonia Sotomayor
- Dinosaurs Divorce by Marc Brown
- All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold – celebrates diversity, equity, and inclusion
- Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai – Activism
- I Am Enough by Grace Byers
- One Big Pair of Underwear by Laura Gehl – Front of book depicts two bears in one pair of underwear
- When an Elephant Falls in Love by Davide Cali – A book about falling in love
She added, “One particular book on the classroom shelf left me speechless. A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Marlon Bundo. This book discusses how two boy bunnies were married by a girl cat and her wife and the stink bug who was yelled at for saying, ‘boy bunnies can’t marry boy bunnies.’”
“In the chapter book section were many Cat Kid books,” she observed. “In researching the Cat Kid series many of them are known to contain adult themes as well.” A parent of a 7-year old left a review of Cat Kid Comic Club Book 1 on Common Sense Media which said, “I was APPALLED at the content of this book. Murder, violence, name calling, incessant potty humor.”
The book I Am Enough is described by Kirkus Reviews as “A feel-good book about self-acceptance.” An anonymous Amazon reviewer wrote, “I purchased this book for my daughter because we have been working on daily affirmations.”
The female characters in the book Malala’s Magic Pencil wear burqas, hijabs and salwar kameezes. The main protagonist said, “My voice became so powerful that the dangerous men tried to silence me. They failed.”
The book Dinosaurs Divorce was criticized by a reviewer on Amazon who described herself as a Christian wife. She said, “This book is likely to make children fearful. This book is like drinking from a firehose. The authors mentioned every possible topic in a 32-page book: reasons for divorce, kids’ feelings, alcohol, pills, fighting, court, parents dating, parents remarrying, stepparents, moving, saying good-bye to friends, having to take care of yourself, having less money, keeping a parenting-time (custody) calendar, different rules in each home, holidays, telling friends, half-siblings, step-siblings, pros and cons of blended families. It’s way too much and it just makes divorce the end of the world.”
A school board member in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, objected to All Are Welcome being read to second graders. “The title of the book is ‘All Are Welcome,’ and the book is about inclusivity, including immigrants, but it neglects to differentiate between legal immigration and foreign invaders,” Alex Detschelt said. “I looked through this book, I could not find a single father, a single dad of any ethnicity in there, and if you did find one, then you turned the page and you saw it in the context of a gay couple.”
The anonymous parent asked Skillicorn, “Can we let our 7- & 8-year-olds just be kids and not start indoctrinating them when they are that young? Why are our school boards silent on this issue?”
Last month, several parents and some children attended a meeting of the Chandler Public Library Board to protest “pornographic” books geared to children located in the children’s section of the Basha branch library. They each used 3 minutes of time granted to members of the public to read portions of books available in the library for young children.
The Arizona Sun Times asked McDowell Mountain Elementary School and the Fountain Hills Unified School District Governing Board for comment, and received a response from Jill Reed, the president of the governing board. She said, “Any books that are deemed unacceptable for students will certainly be removed,” although she did not indicate what the criteria or process would be. Reed said the district has “a literary committee made up of teachers and these books have not been vetted nor brought to them. Our librarian is out of town so we were unable to contact her as to whether any of the books are on the shelves in the library but we will continue to research.”
She said books are “donated by families, community members or literary organizations” to the teachers. The teachers read the books to ensure they are age appropriate before sharing them with students. However, the teacher who had the Marlon Bundo book in her classroom had not yet read it, Reed said. It had not been shared with any children yet.
Upon hearing Reed’s response, Skillicorn told The Sun Times that State Senator Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) told him it is a violation of state law to have those types of books in a second grade classroom. He expressed his concern that there didn’t seem to be a lot of worry about the presence of “illegal, sexualized books in a second grade classroom.”
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
