THE LOTTERIES PLUS ONE was written by the internationally famous and award winning Canadian author Emma Donoghue. It is part of a series and is an imprint of Scholastic Press and recommended by the publisher Harper Collins for 8 to 12 year-olds. The author herself said it showed “slightly extreme liberal values.”
THE LOTTERIES is classified as Intersectionality fiction which mean the characters include varieties of race, sex, gender identity, nationality, age and disability. visible or otherwise. From privilege to marginalization, the intersectionality concept posits that success or failure in life is due to one’s score between these poles but that virtue can be accrued by poverty and hardship and shame earned by achievement and birth status.
Some might find this title a strange choice for students entering grade three, typically age eight. Parents in Bragg Creek, Alberta, Canada, population 589. certainly did. They called Rebel News, who visited in Sept 2020. If the goal was to smash the heteropatriarchy or heteronormativity as some activist teachers have boasted, it did not succeed because the book was pulled from the classroom with the principal conceding that it was not appropriate for the children.
Children’s fiction is big business as may be determined by a bookstore visit and Booknet Canada that develops technology, standards, and education for the Canadian Book Industry. There are many different genres determined by the age of readers but Intersectionality fiction pertains to everyone as it’s definition captures all readers.
Parents and educators buy most children’s books. Parents want to improve their child’s status by helping their child to climb the ladder of success. Educators must follow the now universal Diversity, Identity, Indigeneity, and Equity curricula and need materials to address the intersectionality matrix.
THE LOTTERIES PLUS ONE includes some surprising characters including a four-parent polygamist, dual homosexual family with their biological transsexual three-year-old. The youngest has five multi-racial, multicultural adopted older siblings with various issues from trans gender identity to developmental delays. All are named after trees.
This ‘slightly extreme liberal’ family lives together in a big old Cabbagetown house named Camelottery (price estimate 2 million plus) in Toronto. The family is a super-eco household which breathes tolerance, except where an elderly grand-parent is concerned. The ailing grandpa with presumed dementia is belittled throughout the story with the children insisting the disease has caused him to “lose his marbles.” The children are supposedly home-schooled but no-one works because the family won a lottery. Boxes ticked!
Reactions to the Rebel News story varied. Several parents mentioned pedophilia content. Another: “Don’t we know that every young trans person will make pharma companies 6-8 million dollars in profits thanks to hormones and other needed treatments? That is the real answer behind such a strong and powerful lobby in our schools.”
Finally ‘This is disturbing and disgusting on every single level. For the school principal to even state he/she hasn't read it is awful. They, of all people, should know the curriculum in their schools. I’m all for respecting that people have the right to make personal choices in their lives, but to bring it into the schools to ram it into young brains. If this is school then we need to rethink the whole structure. There is a very dangerous force out there trying to get at our kids’.
Alberta, Canada is a province which the 25 employees of the ARC Foundation are working hard to infiltrate. ARC Foundation initiated the SOGI123 program into every single school board (including private and religious) in British Columbia to the west. It currently works with 6 Alberta school districts to suggest curriculum support books and resources to teachers and students. There are other organizations across Canada at work to achieve the same purpose such as GEGI.CA in Ontario and Gender Creative Kids in Quebec.
WGSS Walnut Grove Secondary School front door in SD#35 Langley,
British Columbia (instagram) photo insert
SOGI 123 claims it “helps educators make schools inclusive and safe for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities. At a SOGI- inclusive school, students’ genders do not limit their interests and opportunities, and their sexual orientation and how they understand and express their gender are welcomed without discrimination. We are currently in Western Canada and looking to grow.”
Therefore, there is an established commercial publishing market for books at the preschool level to secondary school on such topics as family diversity, gender stereotypes, gender diversity, middle grades fiction, middle grades and beyond non-fiction, and graphic novels. Below is a link to a sample pdf booklist from SOGI123 of the package they offer school districts. It forms a small part of their product offerings.
Goodreads is the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations. There are ample opportunities to gauge the vibrancy of this large and growing market.
Goodreads lists:
81 Transgender Friendly Young Children’s Books
35 Middle Grade Elementary Books about Trans Kids
107 Trans Young Adult Fiction
35 Children’s Books About Gender Identity for 8 and under
110 Gender Diversity Books
8 Gender nonconforing books
49 Non-fiction Books about children and gender
332 Books for Trans Teens
Many of these books have already become classics of their genre, even spinning off their own TV serials such as the now infamous “I Am Jazz”. It seems that the Gender Publishing Industry is off to a very lucrative start according to the linked report showing how Queer Creators spent years pushing the LGVTQ agenda in children’s TV programs.
Dr. Robert Bittner is a Canadian specialist in LGBTQ literature for children and youth. He has an MA in Children’s Literature from University of British Columbia and a PhD in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies from Simon Fraser University. He suggests the following online book lists: ALA Rainbow List • ERAC – LGBTQ • Welcoming Schools • YA Pride • I Dream Library and
suggests you visit his website. He is a LGBTQ+ Lit Specialist, and Chair of the 2023 Caldecott Committee, the annual award for the most distinguished American Picture Book for Children.
‘Who do we see in Canadian children’s books? The Toronto Star’s second annual diversity survey tells the story’. In 2019, Canadian authors or illustrators published 419 books featuring 525 main characters. A total of 28 (5.3%) LGBTQ books were published with 6 picture books (2.1%) 4 middle school books (2.8%) and 18 young adult books (18.4). StatCan in June 2021 puts the population of LGBTQ2+ at 4% of the country’s population.
In eastern Canada, another venerable Canadian bookshop, the Glad Day Bookshop describes itself modestly as the world’s oldest LGBT bookstore. It functions as much more than a shop, but is a safe space for “activism and socializing - a place to check the bulletin board for a new roommate, a place to discover new topics and recommendations, a place to hold union meetings and even drag brunches.”
These days, they have gone global, hosting events on their facebook page which include book launches, writing workshops, author visits and burlesque. “Their non-profit, Glad Day Lit has raised over $250,000 for drag queens and queer artists who are currently out of work.”
But parties are the true heart of Glad Day Bookshop and in fact in 2016 they created The Naked Heart LGBTQ Festival of Words, with 40 authors at over 12 free events. The bookcases are movable so that the large space in the downtown Church Street neighbourhood can be endlessly reconfigured for parties which are as “wild, wet, and sexy as the rest of the city.”
Recently BRAVE BOOKS in the U.S. launched a website focusing exclusively on stories for kids offering a conservative alternative to the “current cultural activism that our children are being taught in schools, in the entertainment they watch and the books they read.”
“Elephants Are Not Birds” will not be found in Glad Day Bookshop. "Elephants Are Not Birds" is an unapologetic rebuke of transgender acceptance and the growing number of young people identifying as trans, says author Ashley St. Clair.
Bio: Anonymous hides her name, while reporting from Canada to protect her job and family.
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