Beware! The LO Library may not be safe for children.

 It all started when I picked up the June 2022 edition of LO Monthly - a magazine published by the Lake Oswego Review that arrives in our mailbox every month.  This month the magazine is highlighting the Festival of the Arts which is back in operation this year.  Yay for the arts!  

When I got to page 21 and 22 I had to stop and check to see what I was reading,  in a two-page spread titled “What’s on your nightstand?” with books selected by Allison Staley, Youth Services Librarian for the Lake Oswego Library.   So what books does Allison have on her nightstand?  Or wish you had on yours? Or hope you will bring home to your children for a bedtime read?  

To celebrate June as Pride Month, Allison chose 4 out of 5 books for young children and 5 out of 5 books for teens that deal with gender identity, trans kid characters, and/or sex and sexual attraction.  The one non-gender book is about a “child” who talks his Grandpa into fixing up his camper to take a trip together.  Illustration on the cover of the book suggests the “child” is female - but I can’t really tell. Gramps is definitely male and is referred to with a male pronoun.  Oops!  I just looked up the symbol on this book (and two other books) and found out it is a Stonewall Book Award medallion.  That means all 10 books selected for children and teens have ALA approval - selected by librarians for your kids.  

Wikipedia:   The Stonewall Book Award is a set of three literary awards that annually recognize "exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience" in English-language books published in the U.S.^[1] They are sponsored by the Rainbow Round Table (RRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) and have been part of the American Library Association awards program, now termed ALA Book, Print & Media Awards, since 1986 as the single Gay Book Award.^[4][5]

So, with the local library firmly entrenched in the gender identity for kids debate, why should I be surprised to see this banner advertising a gender/sexuality training session for anyone in the community?  Yet I am.  Surprised.  

Read my previous post on the DailyWire movie, “What is a Woman?” And watch it before you do any gender training.  You will learn some effective ways to ask polite, straightforward questions that propagandists can’t answer or may lie to keep secret the damage this kind of indoctrination has on children.  If many skeptical adults and young people can attend the Zoom training from different locations and expose the fraudulent basis for what they are trying to sell, that would be great!  Be polite.  Be sincere.  Don’t make statements - Ask questions!  One does not have to be anti-gay, or ita it-trans or anti-anything n order to believe that only parents should be talking to their children about their sexuality, especially at young ages. 

If the gender/sex wars directed at kids bothers you, please consider calling or writing a letter to the publisher and editor of the LO Monthly and the Lake Oswego Review, the Library director and the librarians who select the material (Allison Staley)and organize the training (Todd Feinman).  Then contact the Mayor and City Council about your concerns for the direction the library is taking, and how the LO Monthly is marketing our town.  (In the publisher’s info section of the LO Monthly, it says the magazine “is produced in support of Lake Oswego’s Strategic Marketing Plan.   I’ve read the plan and don’t see how celebrating Pride Month by peddling gender books to kids fits their goals.  Note to LO Monthly:  Offending members of the public isn’t a great marketing tool!