A Dismal Night for Books in Conroe

The drama surrounding Drama, book bounties, and a naked sales pitch for SkyTree Book Fairs.

Books once again took center stage at Conroe ISD’s November board meeting. The agenda promised a vote on another revision of the district’s library policy and a hearing on an appeal regarding Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novel Drama, which was retained by a reconsideration committee after being challenged for removal. But there were surprises, too—including an attempt to turn the meeting into a sales pitch for SkyTree Book Fairs, a new anti-LGBTQ brand marketing itself as a replacement for Scholastic.

Some quick background: Conroe ISD has a conservative board that has maintained a precarious resistance against outright extremism. Three of its seats are occupied by extremist, Christian Nationalist “Mama Bears Rising” trustees; three of its trustees generally stand up for students’ right to read. In the middle is board president Skeeter Hubert, a conservative Republican. On one hand, Hubert bragged to the Texas legislature this Spring about removing 55 books from the district, a number that has since grown to 125. On the other hand, he has a record of standing up for board processes and procedures, and that has led to some sharp conflicts with the “Mama Bear” trustees.

At CISD’s November meeting, Hubert—along with trustee Theresa Wagaman—voted with the “Mama Bears” on both agenda items relating to books. First, the “Mama Bears” pushed for changes to the district’s library policy that would make it easier for a trustee to overrule the teachers, librarians, and parents on a reconsideration committee by bringing an appeal directly to the board. They got that, though trustees Stacey Chase and Datren Williams objected, with Williams calling it a “vote of non-confidence in our librarians and our administration.”

“We continue to say we support our educators,” Williams said. “We continue to hug and pat them on the back, give them raises, and this and that, but this specifically is a vote that says I don’t trust you.”

Then, at the end of the night, the board turned to the Level 3 complaint against Telgemeier’s Drama. Drama is a middle-grade book, meaning it’s intended for readers in the upper-elementary and early middle school years.¹ According to its publisher, the book is recommended for 10 – 14-year-olds.²

Telgemeier is an acclaimed children’s author, and Drama traces the crushes a middle school student develops as her school’s theater department stages a play. Objections to the book are transparently homophobic. The book contains no “sexual content” beyond a staged kiss, but it does include gay characters.

The book challenge in Conroe ISD claimed these images “sexualize” children.

The district’s advocate pointed out that at no point does the book’s material rise to the level of sexually explicit, and “as such, the request for reconsideration can only be about the background of the characters.”

At one point, the book’s challenger explained that he pays people to find books with content he finds objectionable. Yes, you read that right. “Because of the books in Conroe ISD,” he said, “true story, people can testify to this, I have a bounty. So I pay the money if they flag the inappropriate material.”

Some trustees were visibly frustrated with the challenge, which Williams called “ridiculous” and a “waste of time,” as well as homophobic. Hubert excoriated the challenger, also calling the challenge a waste of time and saying, “When you bring me a book like this, this is about an 8^th-grade crush, I’m just going to be honest with you, in all reality it makes me never want to even open up another email from you.”  

Nonetheless, the challenge worked. The original committee retained the book for all campuses at or above the intermediate (grades 5 and 6) level. The challenger and the three “Mama Bear” trustees wanted it removed from all schools. Ultimately, the board decided to remove Drama from all schools below the high school level.

To be clear, this is a form of censorship and a functional ban, because it takes the book away from its intended audience. 5^th graders want to read Drama; 11^th graders don’t.

An earlier motion to limit the book to middle (grades 7 and 8) and high school campuses failed, as did a motion to leave the committee’s recommendation in place and a motion to remove the book entirely. The final vote was five to two, with trustees Theresa Wagaman and Hubert siding with the “Mama Bears.” It’s hard to understand exactly what they were thinking. Wagaman introduced the motion to limit the book grades 7 and up, explaining that she was worried about K-4 students accessing the book. But the committee had already removed the book from elementary schools.³ Given the failure of Wagaman’s motion, it’s likely that both she and Hubert thought they were making the best possible compromise.

It was a frustrating result. But for some local leaders the trial of Drama also presented a business opportunity.

Drama is published by Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic, which is best known for its book fairs. Those book fairs have been targets for recent culture-war attacks. This month, a new competitor to Scholastic, SkyTree Book Fairs, launched, promising to ensure the books it sells are “wholesome and trustworthy.” SkyTree claims it has more than 200 books available, but it appears to be primarily a distribution vehicle for Brave Books, an imprint that produces right-wing, often anti-LGBTQ propaganda for children. Brave Books’ author lineup includes culture war figureheads like Mike Flynn, Dana Loesch, Jack Posobiec, and actor Kevin Sorbo.

Like Brave Books, SkyTree is based in Conroe; like Brave Books, its leading spokesperson is Kirk Cameron, the former child actor who somehow has become a mascot for Christian nationalists. Not long before the Conroe meeting, Cameron launched an internet attack on Scholastic for promoting “sexualized and gender-confusing content for minors.”

That attack is SkyTree’s main selling point, and SkyTree and Brave Books did everything they could to turn the board meeting into a sales pitch. SkyTree’s president, Riley Lee, spoke during public comment, saying, “I’m specifically encouraging you and other to consider the harm that Scholastic Book Fairs has on your students and find an alternative.” She also claimed that thousands of other schools “have already dropped Scholastic for our SkyTree Book Fairs.”⁴

Lee was followed by Trent Talbot, the founder and CEO of Brave Books. “Scholastic is putting dangerous and depraved books in our school libraries,” he said. “Scholastic’s gone woke, and many of their stories are now of characters with mental health disorders, LGBTQ characters, and characters undergoing sex change operations. It’s not a surprise, then, that our children have mirrored the characters in the books that they’re reading.”

Before either of them spoke, a young woman came to the microphone to describe how reading a Scholastic book with a single kiss when she was eleven led to a pornography addiction that took her years to shake. “I don’t want Conroe ISD students to repeat what I went through because they accidentally ran upon a Scholastic book or another book that could lead them down this road,” she said, “which Drama is one of them.” [11/27/23: see UPDATE below]

Several other public commenters also mentioned Scholastic books and book fairs.

The punchline to this elaborate setup came during discussion of approved vendors for instructional materials, when “Mama Bear” trustee Melissa Dungan singled out Scholastic from a list of 100 companies. “We had a local young lady speak,” she said, “I think she is the president of SkyTree Book Fair group. Are we aware if they applied? What about Brave Books, with Mr.—I wrote down his name somewhere.”

“I would like to see options alternative to Scholastic for this type of purchase,” she concluded. (She was informed that neither SkyTree nor Brave Books had applied to be vendors, and no changes could be made at that meeting.)

The coordination was so clunky and so transparent that it was almost comical.

It was also breathtakingly cynical, and a bleak sign of how far culture wars have eaten into the day-to-day governance of Texas school districts. But not the bleakest. I keep thinking about Hubert bragging about the books that have been removed during his tenure as president. The list of those books is here.⁵ I first wrote about Conroe during the summer of 2022, after the “Mama Bears” demanded the removal of 35 books from the district. Virtually all of those original 35 books have either been removed or restricted, and the list of books under challenge or internal review grows every day. Forty books were removed in the past two months alone.

The “Mama Bears” don’t control a majority of the board. They’ve made enemies throughout the district. Nonetheless, they continue to get just about everything they ask for. Don’t be surprised if Scholastic’s days in the district are numbered.

UPDATE (11/27/23): Facebook and LinkedIn profiles for the woman who claimed to have been led astray by a kiss in a Scholastic book identify her as “Public relations coordinator at Brave Books.” She did not disclose this connection during her public comment. Neither did SkyTree’s president Riley Lee, a former Brave Books employee, or Trent Talbot, founder and CEO of Brave Books.

1. Trustee Misty Odenweller argued that, because the reconsideration committee had called the book a “middle-grade novel,” it should be relegated to middle school (7th & 8th grade) or higher. Odenweller’s arguments are often based on misunderstandings of basic facts or terminology.

2. Based on my experience, even that age range is a bit elevated. My daughter is 13; she loved Raina Telgemeier books when she was in 3rd and 4th grade.

3. Also, remember: We’re talking about a handful of drawings of innocent kisses.

4. I’m skeptical that this is true.

5. At the start of the Thanksgiving Break, 167 books had been targeted for internal “re-evaluation” in the past two school years. 125 have been removed, according to the district’s superintendent; several have been restricted or “re-leveled,” and some are still pending. Those are results from informal internal reviews, not formal challenges.