Drag Queen Story Time - and a business opportunity for the GC

What’s the betting GC storytime could even provide women who do all sorts of exciting jobs? And represent a diverse cross-section of the community. And I’m not saying they’d massively undercut the competition, but I suspect they’d be, er, competitively priced.

And while obviously nobody should be pigeonholed, a Caribbean reader for Trish Cooke’s Anansi books would be wonderful. Children need to learn about tricksters & Anansi - whether he’s in West Africa, the Caribbean, or a whisper on the wind to the diaspora [& those they share their tales with] - is the trickiest of them all. (TBH best of all is someone who tells you their own version of the story in a spellbinding spinetingling “more PLEASE Auntie” way. No pressure or anything.)

There are lots of feminist fairy tales like The Paperbag Princess.

And if they feel the 'costume' element of the storytime is lacking, perhaps the gender critical storytellers could come dressed as female scientists, businesswomen, footballers, doctors, politicians etc..? You know, something young girls should aspire to be, instead of being encouraged to aim for a glorious career on Onlyfans?

I’d love to know how DQST came about in the first place.

Did a DQ approach your local library service and say “I could come and read stories to kids for you… oh and here’s the fee I’ll charge?”

…or did the library take it upon themselves to go out and source a DQ, for a fee, in order to “promote inclusiveness” / follow the trail bravely blazoned by the ‘rainbow dildo butt monkeys?’

If the former, did they put the role out to a competitive tender? What due diligence did they undertake before employing the DQ in question? Did they look into whether other, perhaps more conventionally qualified, readers would be prepared to offer their services for free? How did they decide that what the DQST offered was better value for money than, for instance, investing more towards new books, or updating their computers?

If they went out to source one, what other under-represented groups did they approach? Did they get quotes to achieve best value for their (no doubt limited) discretionary budget? Have they sought feedback from users of the new ‘service’ to confirm they’re getting the ROI they expected?

And of course, the Emperor's New Clothes would be an obvious choice for a story, with conversation about hard it is to uphold the truth.

Little Red Riding Hood too. Discussion afterwards about what LRH could have done differently - listening to her instinct about Grandma's big hands etc etc...

So many fairy tales are about the dangers and fears of being a child - storytelling was a way for parents to teach children how to be aware of threat and protect them against it. They still have such a valuable role in early years education.

Great idea! I'm sure lots of libraries would pay for women to explain why women are a coherent group who deserve rights.

*story

Excellent plan! We can read that sorry about the wolf in sheeps clothing that seemed to be about accepting someone for who they say they are, but in reality showed the whole thing for what it really is.