over a nine-month period in 26 states, defining bans as student access to previously available books being restricted, diminished, or completely removed. It counts 1,145 books banned across the U.S. The pace of book-banning has accelerated, says a study by the literature and freedom-expression group PEN America. Now she's disturbed this controversy is happening two decades later, with same-sex marriage legalized seven years ago in the U.S. … I wanted them to read the book and think, 'That's what we're like. 'I wanted to make sure, as well as I possibly could, that any child looking at the book would find some semblance of their own family. 'That was by design,' Frazee said in an interview. (Marla Frazee)īut she says she wanted families with same-sex couples to feel included. The artist said she wanted everyone to see their own family reflected, so she included some examples that could be interpreted as same-sex couples. There are dozens of families depicted in Everywhere Babies. Artist Marla Frazee says she never specifies whether they're sisters, brothers, friends, or spouses. In a couple of images there are two men or two women with a baby. Meyers decided to write Everywhere Babies after witnessing Christmas nativity scenes: she based it on images of adults gathering around babies.Ī prominent artist was hired to illustrate these scenes and she drew all sorts of families: young parents, old parents, light-skinned and dark-skinned. This 2001 book was inspired by the birth of Meyers' first grandchild, and how all the boy's grandparents gazed lovingly at him. 'It's so out of the blue,' children's writer Susan Meyers later told CBC News in an interview. The book's author was stunned last week when the issue made national and international headlines and she heard about it from The Washington Post.

It's a tale of censorship, hypocrisy, and distorted facts, details lost in the fog of an all-consuming culture war spreading across the United States.Ī popular children's book, Everywhere Babies, found itself on a list of 58 books targeted for banning from school libraries by a Florida conservative group.

The story of how it was attacked takes unexpected twists. As a target for a book ban, this seemed an unlikely candidate: a book about babies, about how adorable they are, a book inspired by a grandmother's love.

Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers