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Parent complaints push Fairfield schools to cancel talk with LGBTQ+ author

A stack of commonly banned books.
Ted Shaffrey
/
AP
A stack of commonly banned books.

Fairfield, Connecticut public schools canceled a planned visit from an LGBTQ+ children’s author after a complaint from a parent about his book’s content.

Chad Sell, a Connecticut resident, planned to read from his book The Cardboard Kingdom: Snow and Sorcery.

Madison-based bookstore RJ Julia organized the visit. Kayla O’Donnell works for the store to coordinate author events for schools.

“The books are extremely inclusive," Julia said. "They’re very representative of people from all different walks of life, and it very subtly goes into some family situations.”

She said she was surprised to hear of the complaint.

“We support inclusivity, we support representation, we definitely support our authors in our community," she adds. "And it was just very shocking that the representation in this book was causing a problem for parents.”

Fairfield Superintendent Michael Testani said at a school board meeting he was forced to make a decision on whether to cancel the event, and he said he erred on the side of caution.

“I know there’s been a lot of assumptions made on people’s parts to book censorship and the malintent of certain groups of people in the community," Testani said. "I did not get the impression that anyone had an agenda here.”

Testani said he reached out to the book’s publisher to discuss the possibility of bringing Chad Sell back at a future date. RJ Julia said the event has been moved to the Fairfield Public Library on Thursday.

Testani didn’t respond to a request from WSHU for comment.

Davis Dunavin loves telling stories, whether on the radio or around the campfire. He started in Missouri and ended up in Connecticut, which, he'd like to point out, is the same geographic trajectory taken by Mark Twain.