On June 1, the first day of “pride” month, drag queens set a Guinness World Record for attendance when 263 people showed up in Philadelphia to hear one of their infamous story hours. On Aug. 24, one of the hundreds of Americans hosting wholesome story hours in nearly every state across the country hope to dwarf that record on See You at the Library Day.
They shouldn’t have much trouble. After 50-plus libraries denied actor and author Kirk Cameron public rooms to host age-appropriate story hours for kids in 2022 and 2023 — despite many of those same rooms being used for drag queen story hours — Cameron and his team resorted to renting out private rooms. The effort was a booming success, with more than 300 total story hours across the United States. The very first story hour Cameron hosted in Indianapolis drew thousands of people.
This year, Cameron is again partnering with Brave Books to set up story hours, with hundreds of patriotic Americans hosting events in their hometowns. Some of the hosts — such as a Christian fireman, an immigrant from Soviet Russia, and a homeschooling mom — are returners from last year, while others are jumping into the fray for the first time.
According to Brave Books, as of Friday night, Texas alone has 39 story hours planned, with deep blue California planning to host 16. Cameron told The Federalist that he and Pastor John Amanchukwu plan to attend some of the story hours in the D.C. and Virginia area.
“We don’t want to abandon these states,” Camon said of the “hurting” areas “crying out for a change.” “We want to be part of their revival and resuscitation.” The Brave team even invited Gov. Gavin Newsom to attend a story hour in California “in hopes that he will learn about the values that will return blessings to his state.”
Kids and parents who show up for See You at the Library Day can expect to “learn about gender identity from God’s perspective,” Cameron told The Federalist in an interview. “It’s a book called Elephants Are Not Birds, and Culture the Vulture tries to convince Kevin the Elephant that he might be happier living as a bird because he likes to sing. But Kevin discovers the truth, and he becomes the local hero when he embraces who God made him and designed him to be.”
In another story, kids will also learn about Sky Tree, “a little acorn who grows into a big, strong tree and provides a home and food for all the animals on Freedom Island,” Cameron said. They’ll also “learn about valuing all lives … including the unborn life, including disabled lives, and including elderly lives specifically.”
“These are the kinds of books that are fun, imaginative, but they’re reinforcing the worldview and the values that parents so desperately want,” Cameron added.
See You at the Library Day hasn’t been without leftist pushback, especially from angry local activists. In Huntsville, Alabama, for instance, where Cameron visited with conservative swimmer Riley Gaines last year, he said left-wing members of the community are organizing a protest and dubbing the family-friendly library movement “Kirkpocalypse.”
“The hypocrisy is at a level 10,” Cameron said. The people who cry “book ban” when parents try to keep pornographic books out of their children’s hands are the same ones trying to shut down an uplifting book-reading event.
But most of the response has been positive. Cameron said many of the libraries remember the event from last year and are more excited this time, which has increased the number participating.
The hosts are excited too, and some are returning from last year because “it will take action of brave men and women to revive [us from] our cultural decline in this country,” as one host from Camp Verde, Arizona, shared. He’s right.
“The most important thing we can do to win the war is not going to be screaming, yelling, and who we vote for,” emphasized Cameron, who just became a grandfather. “Nothing works if we don’t raise our own children. We’ve got to be the gatekeepers to make sure no evil comes to them and we build up their immunity to evil. And we build up the good in them.”
“I want to build a library of things for kids and grandkids all over the country that will ignite their imagination and give them a love for the truth and an understanding of right from wrong.”
Find a story hour near you here. If there isn’t one, go to your local library with your kids on Aug. 24 to read books rooted in traditional biblical and American values and pray for America.
