Drag Queen Story Time

Saturday afternoon, right after Evelyn's birthday party we headed to a nearby library because they were having drag queen story time and we were curious what that meant, so we attended. (This event was originally scheduled to be held at one library but after the library posted the event on Facebook and garnered a lot of attention it was moved to a larger space. Apparently we weren't the only ones who were curious!)

 I felt like I needed to explain what a drag queen was to the kids beforehand so I looked up the exact definition and used that to explain. I didn't go into huge detail but they got that this was going to be a man dressed as a woman and I thought they could kind of decide what to make of it from there.

The event had been advertised as family friendly and the line was very long when we arrived. Luckily, just as we walked in, we saw some friends from Dakota's girl scout troop and they invited us to stand in line with them. A few minutes later my friend Lisa came in with her two boys and of course we made room for them as well. While we waited for entry into the conference room library staff began handing out rainbow heart stickers as well as Annapolis Pride bracelets. It was nice to be among so many open minded individuals.

When Balena Canto came into the room there was a huge applause! She immediately began with introducing herself and then warmed the room up with a song. The song was just a simple hello greeting song but I realized then that this was meant for a younger crowd than my 6/8 year old. The first book was called Not Quite Narwhal by Jessie Sima and it was quite good. The next book was for the very young kids in the room (there were MANY) but our older kids sat and listened respectfully which was really nice. After that they passed out some handkerchiefs and did a few more songs (for the young crowd) but again, our big kids sang and danced without any hesitation or complaint. At the very end there were some crafts for the kids to do but none of our kids were interested so we headed out.

So, here's my take. We went to story time at our library. A man, dressed in women's clothing sang and read books with the kids. Everyone in the room was happy to be there and any and all judgement was left outside those library doors. I appreciate the libraries progressive attitude and Balena's courage to share a part of her life with the rest of us.