Student, 11, Confronts School Board by Reading Them 'Pornographic' Book from Library
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
What if you, as a parent, were to find your 6th grader reading a book about two kids who drink alcohol and sexually experiment with one another? You’d be outraged, and rightly so.
But let’s go a step further: What if you discovered the book had been loaned to your child by his school’s library — and that the librarian said that if he enjoyed it, they could recommend more books like it to him?
In yet another example of why using the term “groomer” on those who push the LGBT agenda on children isn’t a misnomer, parents in Windham, Maine, are furious after an 11-year-old boy and his father confronted the local school board over “Nick and Charlie” — and illustrated “romance” (maybe not quite the correct word), which contains graphic passages and is, apparently, freely available to whoever wants to check it out.
According to local conservative outlet the Maine Wire, Knox Zajac went viral in February after reading passages from the tome during a school board meeting.
“The story begins with two early teen boys stealing wine from their parents and proceeding to experiment sexually with one another,” Maine Wire reported.
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language that some viewers will find offensive.
“I was in the library, and this book was on the stand. I would like to read you a page,” Zajac began at the meeting.
“My back over my hips. I asked if we should take our clothes off. And he said yes before I finished my sentence. He’s pulling off my t-shirt, laughing when I can’t undo his shirt buttons. He’s undoing my belt. I’m reaching into his bedside drawer for a condom,” Zajac read.
The book, written by Alice Oseman, is advised for 14 and over, but that didn’t stop the librarians from finding it all-too-appropriate.
“When I rented it out and showed my dad it, the librarian asked if I wanted more and if I wanted a graphic novel version,” Zajac said.
In an interview, Zajac said he skimmed the book after seeing it on display and said he felt “so uncomfortable” looking at he material.
Sixth-grader Knox Zajac tells @WGME why he read from the controversial book “Nick and Charlie” during a recent school board meeting in Maine. pic.twitter.com/JlGPgBOedy
— Crisis in the Classroom (@CITClassroom) March 1, 2023
The boy’s father also spoke out before the Board of Windham Raymond School District, according to Fox News.
“I’m that kid’s father,” Adam Zajac said.
“That’s my son, 11 years old and went to his library and found it by the entry door of our library. This is the smut that he is finding, alright? I don’t care whether it’s gay, straight, bisexual or whatever the terms are for all of this stuff — it doesn’t need to be at our school. It doesn’t need to be at my 11-year-old’s library.”
“A lot of parents just don’t know what’s going on in the school,” Adam Zajac told the Maine Wire. “What I don’t understand is how we have books in the middle school library that adults would be fired for having at work, or potentially prosecuted for sharing with children given their pornographic content. It’s smut, really.”
The contentious meeting came as the Maine Wire reported “[p]arents in Windham are battling with left-wing activists and members of the school board over books in the school library that feature cartoon images of children having sex and lurid passages about sexual encounters between minors.”
“Nick and Charlie” is one of two books currently being challenged. The other is an old favorite, so to speak, that’s available in the high school library: “Gender Queer,” a pornographic novel that has received repeated challenges by parents’ rights groups in the past.
When that book, written by Maia Kobabe, became an issue during the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial campaign — after it turned up in numerous Old Dominion libraries as Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe was telling voters he was “not gonna let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions.” TV stations wouldn’t let images from the book run unedited in ads.
Terry McAuliffe: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” pic.twitter.com/rs6pSWZw79
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) October 19, 2021
Adam Zajac had equally harsh words for those who would allow “Gender Queer” in school libraries.
“This is bulls***,” he said, Fox reported.
“We do not need to be having literature that is showing boys how to s*** d*** … you may think the schools know what’s best for our children. You know who knows best for our children? The parents.”
In Windham, meanwhile, it’s not just the Zajacs that are disturbed.
Ken Clark, who has kids in both middle and high school in the district, told Maine Wire he has “had [his] antennae up for several years now,” adding that the schools are now encouraging students to officially change their gender in the school records “100 percent behind the parents’ backs.”
Maria Clark, who has nine grandchildren in the district, said part of the problem was that educators were making it “trendy to be a trans kid.”
“We’re not looking to ban books, we’re just trying to make sure they aren’t all out front and center in the libraries like they are now,” Maria Clark said. “We’re not trying to ban books, we’re just concerned that they are being used not as reference but rather advocacy materials.”
And that’s how they’re being used, make no mistake. If you don’t think that’s grooming, it’s quite possible you won’t think anything is.
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