EXCLUSIVE: Brave Books story hour takes the Library of Congress

When Kirk Cameron got started as a children's book author with Brave Books, he was rejected from some 50 libraries. Armed with children's books steeped in morality and Christian values, he attempted to hold story hours at public libraries—libraries that also held Drag Queen Story Hours—only to be told his stories did not align with the libraries' values. This past Saturday, he took his story hour to the Library of Congress.

It wasn't a smooth road to the Capitol. After the rejections, Cameron and Brave rented space at libraries to hold story hours and were overwhelmed with support from parents who brought their children out to their local libraries to hear stories about faith, family, and morality. Families had been inundated with messaging about LGBTQ lifestyles. Now, being at the Library of Congress, Brave Books CEO Trent Talbot said it was "very surreal."

"Two and a half years ago, getting turned down by every library we reached out to literally over 50 to now we're here at the Library of Congress, and there's hundreds of other story hours happening on the same day across the country," Talbot said, "so it's really neat."

"You know, just two and a half years ago, our culture was going down the wrong direction, and the family of faith stood up and said, 'No, we don't want to go that way, that way is not good. And let me show you a better way.' And their voices, they started to use their voice. And culture has been shifting ever since then in a positive way, to the point now that, you know we're here, we've got a new administration, the same sort of dangerous duo that was getting canceled by every library is now embraced at the Library of Congress and the nation's capital."

In fact, the San Francisco-based founders of Drag Queen Story Hour launched the project with the idea of getting their "glitter" so deep into the "carpet" that it would never come out. Drag Queen Story Hour was the intentional "queering" of early childhood education. "Drag," writes founders and authors Harper Keenan and Lil Miss Hot Mess, "is firmly rooted in play as a site of queer pleasure, resistance, and self-fashioning."

This is what Cameron and Brave Books were facing: an entire pedagogy intentionally designed to bring children into practice and acceptance of queer lifestyles, including everything from sex changes to so-called "pup play." Keenan and Lil Miss Hot Mess said than the structure of the Drag Story Hours should involve drag queens, "occasional kings or other gender-bending performers," reading books on "queer and/or trans characters, gender-transgressive themes, or narratives about not fitting in and finding one’s voice." The drag performers then lead children in crafts, such as "making wands or tiaras."

I asked Kirk Cameron about how culture has been so transformed as to go from Drag Queen Story Hour, where librarians told Cameron and Brave Books that Christian values were not welcome at the public library, to having these books platformed at the Library of Congress. It was entirely and unequivocally a win. 

"What I experience every time we go to a library is a win at that library," he said, "even when there are protesters, they are literally overwhelmed and silenced by the moms and dads who kindly but firmly tell them that the values being spoken of and sung about here is what we want, and we pay our taxes and this is what we want our libraries to be all about."

"We don't want you know the purple hair platoon to show up and indoctrinate our children and confuse them with ideas that actually lead to their harm," Cameron said. "And what I hope that people take away from See you at the Library today is wherever they are in the country, to remember that parenting is sacred. God gave children to moms and dads, not to governments and politicians."

The same libraries that hosted Lil Miss Hot Mess' creation refused to host Cameron and Brave Books. It was astounding, and it was not what parents wanted. The launch of See You at the Library Day to counter it was more successful that they could have imagined. Families lined up around blocks to get in, they were finally feeling welcomed at their public libraries. Sure, there were protests, but they were drowned out. 

Missy Robertson was in attendance at one of the story hours that faced protests in Hendersonville, Tenn. At that library, it was the staff that took issue with the books and authors. "But there were hundreds and hundreds of families waiting in line," she said. "And it was cold, it started— a cold front had moved in. It was rainy. It did not deter them."

"These families were coming in to hear these books and to support this movement that Brave Books was doing, the See You at the Library movement, and the staff— the staff are the ones who did not want us there," Robertson said.

"And I didn't realize what was going on at the time, but Kirk had been going through it for a little bit, longer than I had. But now, to be here on Capitol Hill to do it at the most beautiful library. It's like, it's really like a dream. When I heard, I was like, this is like a dream for anyone, when you're being spit on and you're being persecuted, and then for God to lift you up and raise you up, for one reason, we're going to glorify Him today."

The Trump administration has also begun to make changes at the Smithsonian Museums, which under the Biden administration featured presentations about how being on time and striving for excellence were white supremacist values. I asked Michael Knowles about those changes.

"I love how his critics are saying this is a terrible authoritarian takeover," Knowles said. "He's trying to take some power over the arts, right, and history. And I said, Well, what have you all been doing for the last 70 years now? And of course, I don't even really knock the left. I knock the left for how they malformed our understanding of history in the arts, but I knock them for engaging with it, right?"

"What is our country separated from our history?" Knowles asked. "How can you understand the country if you don't have a particular view of history? So the battle over history is a battle for the heart of the country, and it's a battle for our future. Yeah, the same goes for the arts. How can you understand the people if you neglect the plays and the poems and the pictures and the architecture, even you know, if we're going to live in some brutalist dystopia like the left has given us for the last 60 years, that's going to color the way we view ourselves."

The Library of Congress is not only the largest library in the country but the largest repository of books and knowledge in the world. It was founded in 1800 and its gilded walls and arches have seen countless hours of research, study and scholarship. In just a few short years, Cameron and Brave Books went from being shut out, protested, and mocked to the most prestigious literary venue the country has ever known.

August 16, 2025 was not just the day See You at the Library Day hit Capitol Hill, but the day that these Brave Books story hours blossomed at libraries across the country. In DC, the event was sponsored by the Department of Education's Center for Faith and featured Brave Books authors reading to an auditorium full of families and children.