Here is the link and a QR code to my drag character (Ella Minnow Pea)’s instagram profile. I have my first drag story time video posted, and will likely use it to post more in the future to build up my portfolio. I would love to do live drag story time at a local library one day, so I can use this account as a portfolio to show my work when potentially setting up an event with a librarian in the future. Again, the account is private for now, but if you are one of my teachers or fellow teacher candidates I will gladly let you follow and stay up to date with my story time drag adventures if you’d like to learn more.
Thank you for reading along and learning with me, I really hope this free inquiry project has helped you understand and appreciate just how special and important drag story time is and why we need to protect it.
As you may know if you’ve been reading my incredibly exciting blog, my end goal in this free inquiry project is to create a drag character- one specifically made for drag story time- and start a digital drag portfolio. In this week’s post, I’ll explain the process of creating my drag character and setting up their Instagram account (aka digital drag portfolio, because this is technology class and if I can’t convert to a PDF I can hopefully make up for it by saying things like “digital drag portfolio”). Because I am not ready to deal with all the horrors of the internet, my drag profile is private for now. Here is a link and QR code for anyone interested, I will approve you if we know each other and I can trust you with drag matters.
Now that I’ve got all that out of the way, I can introduce you to my alter ego, Mx. Ella Minnow Pea! Ella is a drag performer here to serve looks and read books, specifically to read high-quality books to children in an engaging and fun way. Ella’s look is cute, sparkly, and will probably incorporate more princess dresses in the future- and maybe some sparkly suits, if I can get my hands on them. I love traditional drag, but for Ella I decided to go with very soft and subtle drag makeup. Oh, and I just remembered that the honorific “Mx.” is new to some people, so if you haven’t seen it before, it’s just a way to refer to someone if they don’t want to disclose their gender or marital status. You say it like “mix”, and anybody can use it. I included this title in Ella’s instagram account because it represents that this character is not defined by gender, she’s just here to sparkle.
I love wordplay and language arts, so I had to incorporate that in my drag name. “Ella Minnow Pea” (Mark L. Dunn) is the title of one of my favourite novels, and the message behind the book fits perfectly with my drag mission. Here’s the description from the back of the book:
Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”. Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue, they also disappear from the novel. The result is both a hilarious and moving story of one girl’s fight for freedom of expression and a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhere.
In addition to the parallels between Ella’s character and my drag character, the name “Ella Minnow Pea” is an alphabet joke, because it sounds just like “L M N O P”, hence why it was chosen for a story about letters. As a drag artist with the goal of promoting literacy and a love for reading, I think this funny name is perfect. I also think it’s perfect because some people like to make fun of LGBTQ+ people by calling us “the alphabet people”, and sometimes we reclaim this label with love. In fact, I once had an angry woman follow me out of a swimming pool to tell me some hurtful and factually incorrect things about myself as a Queer person. As her final jab, she shouted at me across the parking lot, “At least I’m not alphabetical!”, which gave me a good laugh, because it probably isn’t the most effective thing to say if you want to hurt someone’s feelings. So by being Ella Minnow Pea, I am having a laugh about and proudly owning my title as an “alphabetical” person.
I usually struggle with technology, but I found it fairly easy to set up Ella’s instagram account. When I started typing out this post I expected to have lots to say about the process, but it only took me about five minutes which I’m quite happy about. I uploaded a simple background for the profile pic, added some pronouns, and included this bio:
âA drag performer promoting literacy and inclusivityâ â Busy serving looks and reading books in Ktunaxa ÉamakÉisâ
I chose to note that I am in Ktunaxa ÉamakÉis, because I need to remember that this land is full of Ktunaxa history going back thousands of years before I showed up and put on some eyeshadow, and it’s still Ktunaxa land today. This is my responsibility as a person, but I think it’s even more important for me to acknowledge as a performer who wants to bring people together and make sure every child and family feels seen, respected, and celebrated. Saying the land’s name is a small step in a lifelong journey of promoting truth about Indigenous Peoples’ experiences and reconciliation of the trauma white teachers like myself caused through the Indian Residential School system.
Stay tuned for next week’s free inquiry post, by that time I will have my first story time video uploaded and will share a reflection of my whole free inquiry project.
Welcome to the library, are you ready to get read? Just kidding- the fun and silly drag culture practice of “reading” someone is not at all literacy related, but I felt it was right to start with a joke after last week’s heavier post. In drag culture, “reading” someone means throwing a sassy, witty, personal comment their way with the intention of getting a similar sassy response back. It’s a bit like a roast battle, the intention is usually to make a smart and funny jab without being truly hurtful. It’s an art, really. Anyhow, onto the most important type of reading: books for children.
One of my main goals as a future teacher is to promote literacy. I always knew this was one of the pillars of teaching, but I didn’t realize how important (and sometimes difficult) of a task it was until reading From Striving to Thriving (Stephanie Harvey and Annie Ward, Scholastic) in my Literacy and Language course this semester. This wonderful book taught me that positive, fun experiences with reading in elementary school make all the difference in creating lifelong readers and strong students. It also taught me that so much of literacy is not just about reading the words, but meaning-making and drawing connections. I had already pondered creating a drag story time project, but this made me certain that it was something I wanted to do.
My end goal with this project is to create a drag character (specifically tailored to drag story time) and an accompanying social media profile. I’d like to use this profile to post a video of myself in character reading a children’s book with a matching drag look to really bring the story to life, and to keep this as a private portfolio of my work. But first, I want to learn more about what typical book choices look like for drag story hours. After all, the goal of DSH is to include and celebrate everyone, and I want to go into this with an idea of what types of books children and families like to see to feel included and celebrated.
Here are a few book recommendations I found that were put forward by San Francisco’s DSH chapter:
-My Princess Boy (Cheryl Kilodavis)
-Jacob’s New Dress (Sarah Hoffman)
-Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress (Christine Baldaccio)
All of these books are excellent, but for my first drag story time, I want to choose a book that really stood out for me as a kid. Don’t get me wrong, 5 year old Graham thought Heather Has Two Mommies was fairly interesting, but I have always been more interested in picture books that lean into the surreal. I am also pretty interested in reading banned books. At the beginning of this project when I was still brainstorming, my teacher suggested reading or including banned books in my project, which made me go “Darn, why didn’t I think of that?”. I looked into banned books this week because nearly every book about LGBTQ+ people (or penguins) has been banned somewhere at some point, such as the books listed above.
I was shocked to find out that The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch, one of my favourite books ever, appeared on many lists of commonly banned books! Apparently this is due to its portrayal of reversed gender roles, because if you haven’t read it, the Paper Bag Princess is a smart and strong girl who rescues a prince and then realizes she doesn’t need him anyways. Now I was certain this was the perfect book for my first drag story time. It’s perfect because it’s a story that plays by nearly all the rules of “acceptable” kids books in the eyes of many socially conservative people, yet it still has been banned for depicting the slightest whiff of deviation from social norms. Since I am creating my Instagram profile for the purpose of sharing it with my peers and potential librarians (I’d love to do an in-person story time one day!) I want to tell a story in a way that sends a bigger message to adults.
The message I want to send is that among many wonderful things, drag story time is a tool for pushing back against the censorship of children’s literature. And just because you aren’t LGBTQ+, or just because you’re a friendly white Canadian who loves (sort of) traditional fairy tales, it doesn’t mean “your books” are safe from being banned. So let’s stick together, everyone, and ensure that our kids get access to all the books that represent who they are.
Yes, being this fabulous IS exhausting sometimes. Because although there are always allies and co-conspirators here to stand up for and celebrate people like myself, there are always homophobic and transphobic people too. Along with the increased visibility of LGBTQ+ people over the past few years, there has been an increase in police-reported hate crimes against us (I will focus on Canada, but this effect has been observed in several other countries).
The RCMP reports that hate crimes targeting LGBTQ+ people increased by 150% between 2015 and 2020- keep in mind, this is only the police reported data. Some LGBTQ+ people don’t report for fear of being further mistreated or discriminated against based on other factors, such as being a Person of Colour or having past adverse experiences with police. When I searched for the full data set on Statistics Canada, I realized new data had been released, showing yet another large increase- from 2020 to 2023 the number of crimes against us jumped from 258 to 860 with a steady climb all the way through. That’s pretty scary to me.
I wanted to look into these statistics again as part of my free inquiry because I need be knowledgeable as a visibly queer person, especially since I would like to start my own drag story time project one day. Having a finger to the pulse of these cultural trends helps inform me about the risks of taking on such a project, and further reminds me that I need to prepare myself for the possibility of being targeted. The CBC video embedded below talks about Fay and Fluffy (from free inquiry post #2) and shows footage and interviews surrounding an instance of targeting that they experienced in 2023 while hosting a public drag story time event. I found it far from surprising that the video also mentioned white supremacist ideology being connected to anti-drag story time protests. I think this is important for me to be aware of, because although I am not at the receiving end of racism, many drag performers and families in their audiences are. Being reminded of this encourages me to do more personal learning about creating events that are especially safe for People of Colour.
So, because there are some scary possibilities out there for me, I decided to create a brainstorm list of ways I can take care of myself currently (and in the future) when things like this happen.
Join Cranbrook Pride to have a supportive community to fall back on
Connect with local drag performers and queer educators to create a support network and get advice
Find co-conspirators and accomplices in my teacher community who can help me create safety plans if (hopefully, when) I am ready to host a public drag story time event
Move slowly in this process, and only increase my visibility as a queer person when I feel ready to handle the potential risks that will come with more visibility
But despite the sad and frightening things happening in the world, I am still determined to fill it with rainbows and give kids the inclusive childhood experiences I wish I had. For more on creating beautiful and joyful queer experiences, read my next post!
The gorgeous garage above features a version of the progress pride flag, designed in 2018 by Daniel Quasar. The progress pride flag is a redesign of the 1978 pride flag by Gilbert Baker, but with a few key differences. The progress flag features a large triangle pointing to the right, symbolizing the need to keep “moving forward” and progressing towards true inclusivity. The black and brown stripes represent People of Colour who are LGBTQ+, and the pastel stripes represent trans people. This flag features a raised fist, a powerful symbol for the Black Lives Matter Movement that also represents solidarity between many marginalized groups of people. There are other versions of the progress flag to represent specific cultures- for example, a circled double-feather emblem and occasionally medicine wheel are added to represent Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer identities, and the unique experiences of Indigenous people in the LBGTQ+ community. The image below shows another beautiful use of pride flags, incorporated in a sign welcoming refugees to Canada.
Pride flags come in so many unique designs like the people who carry them, because culture, gender identity, and sexual orientation have always been intertwined. Just like the word “hygge” (Danish) has no English equivalent, identities like Kinner (Hindi), Niizh manidoowag (Anishinabeemowin), Yinyang Ren (Mandarin), Boi (African American Vernacular English) or Fa’afafine (Samoan), are so culturally specific and rich in history that other languages usually can’t describe them in one term. In fact, nearly all cultural identities can only be held by a person belonging to that culture because of these rich and complex histories.
But why does this matter for drag story hour? Because children, parents, families (absolutely everyone) deserves to be seen and celebrated, and children- the typical crowd of drag story hour- are at crucial points of developing self-image and worldview. When children see themselves (in terms of cultural or LGBTQ+ identities, or both) represented in positive and accurate ways, it allows them to feel proud of who they are and choose strong role models. There are also important benefits for children who see people different than themselves represented well- it shapes the way they view people, and therefore how they treat them.
This is why drag representation is important not just for uplifting the diverse gender expressions of people, but also for celebrating the diverse cultures people belong to. While I researched for this blog post, I saw came across some amazing artists bringing cultural representation to kids through the DSH organization. Here they are, I strongly recommend giving them a follow or watching their content if you’d like to learn more:
– Papi Churro and La Dede Camacho celebrate Latine Heritage Month with Drag Story Hour https://www.instagram.com/p/DARcthkRPLI/ https://www.instagram.com/p/DAOARwaRG2F/
– Stormie Daie teaches children about Juneteenth and celebrates African American Scientist and Inventor Day with STEM stories https://www.instagram.com/p/C8ZcYnlxnW4/ https://www.instagram.com/p/C3yr1jNRvH4/
-Harmonica Sunbeam celebrates National Freedom Day with the story “Black is a Rainbow Colour”https://www.instagram.com/p/C2xDuNJuzGH/
Reading this was a pivotal moment for me, because seeing the positive reception of DSH by non-queer people, especially religious ones, showed me that the world might be more ready for us. This seems to be both true and untrue at once, because the world is complicated. A few years later (2022) Fay and Fluffy’s names popped up again when I heard about The Fabulous Show, which is basically their drag story project translated into a kids TV program on Family Jr. I was thrilled that a show like this had made it into mainstream media, because I know that as a child seeing myself reflected in this way would’ve helped me feel more so much more comfortable in my own identity. This was the moment where I felt the worldhad become better equipped to handle us, in all our glitter and pizzaz.
But again, because the world is complicated, this boost in drag queen visibility came with a tsunami of backlash. I probably don’t need to give you proof, but if you haven’t seen it yourself, look at the reviews for and articles about The Fabulous Show. A lot of people are very angry and very afraid of us, and it hurt my heart to hear some of the things people had to say. But my heart was also warmed by the glowing reviews left by many other parents. Digging more into the public reception of The Fabulous Show reminded me that visibility is a bit of a paradox, because when the whole internet is in your audience, there’s inevitably going to be people who didn’t buy tickets to the show.
Part of the safety of DSH in libraries is that the chance of someone in opposition taking the time to show up is probably much slimmer, so even though there is still backlash, the floodgates aren’t fully open. On top of that, people seem to be more embarrassed by their bad behaviour when they are physically present. With these things considered, I gravitate more to the idea of DSH being an in-person event if I ever were to host one- which is something I have been considering for a while. I am so grateful for the existence of The Fabulous Show with Fay and Fluffy, and it is a resource I will certainly share with others, but this week’s research has shown me that I am not ready for the risk of participating in digital Drag Story Hour.
For my free inquiry project, I chose to explore “Drag Story Hour”, a fabulous cultural phenomenon that began around ten years ago and has attracted lots of media attention recently. So, how did drag story hour begin? It was a dark and stormy night in San Francisco, and the year was 2015. Author and parent, Michelle Tea, noticed a lack of community events for children and families that were inclusive and embracing of Queer people like herself. So, under the leadership of JuliĂĄn Delgado Lopera and Virgie Tovar, alongside  RADAR Productions (a non-profit literary arts organization that supports Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) Michelle helped create the first formal Drag Queen Story Hour events.
DSH began with drag queens reading books to children in libraries, but it evolved to include drag kings, things, and all types of drag performers. In October 2022, Drag Queen Story Hour was renamed Drag Story Hour to reflect the diverse performers taking part. The general concept of DSH is that representation matters, and it is part of education and community building.
Whether you are a child in a queer family, a queer child, or simply a friend, attending DSH is a way to understand the gender and cultural diversity of people through a tailored age-appropriate lens. But aside from purely promoting literacy and showcasing diversity, drag story times are meant to be fun! Drag for adults is campy, silly, and dramatic, and drag for children and teens is no different in these core aspects. Drag story time is rooted in the idea that if you add joy (glitter and wigs) to learning, it will spark children’s interest and create life-long learners. As a teacher candidate who struggled with early reading myself, that’s an idea I can get behind.
