I will always reblog this....it is so important to be able to give them access to help. As a writer I fully support this
Comic is by Pan Cooke (he/him). You can find him @thefakepan on Instagram. Here’s a link to the comic: https://www.instagram.com/p/DAOU7_5PVkH/?igsh=dHlzYWZhN3BsaDZ4
[Image Descriptions: Screenshots from Instagram of an eight-panel comic by Pan Cooke. All panels except the last have black text against a white background at the top. The top text will be inside braces {} to differentiate from the rest of the panel description.
ID1: {A 10-year-old in Delaware was visiting her local library with her mother.} Below is a drawing of a young girl and her mother in between two library shelves, with more bookshelves behind them. The girl is wearing a purple long-sleeve shirt, dark pants, and an orange backpack. She wears a light purple flower-shaped barrette in her brunette hair, and looks excited to be there. The mom stands behind her, arms crossed and smiling. She wears a grayish teal t-shirt and dark bottoms, and has black hair. Next to the mom’s head is black block letters reading BOOK BANS.
ID2: {While searching the shelves, she picked up the book, “It’s Perfectly Normal” by Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberly.} The drawing shows the girl from the back, reaching towards a bookshelf, with her hand on one book. All the books on the bookshelf are gray except for the one the girl touches, which is French blue.
ID3: {The book is about sex education and is one of the most banned books of the past two decades. The little girl took it home.} Depicted is the interior of a car, as though through the front windshield. The mom is in the driver’s seat, looking in the rear view mirror at her daughter, who sits in the middle of the back seat. The mother is smiling while the daughter looks pensively down at the blue book she’s holding. Both are wearing their seatbelts.
ID4: {Later that day, the little girl showed her mom the chapter on sexual abuse and said,} “This is me.” Written in a speech bubble in the middle of the panel. The POV is behind the girl’s shoulder as she shows the open book to her mother. The mother sits at a table on the left side of the panel; she looks shocked, confused, and distraught.
ID5: {Her father was abusing her, and this was the first time she’d talked about it.} A close-up of the mother’s face from the last panel. Her eyebrows are a bit more raised, and her mouth is open as though about to speak. Her face conveys worry and and distress.
ID6: {The father was convicted, and the judge said,} “There were heroes in this case. One was the child, and the other was the book.” This is written in a speech bubble pointing towards an older, balding Black man wearing glasses and a judicial robe. He is sitting at a judge’s bench in a courtroom; part of the USA flag is visible behind him.
ID7: {In an interview, the author, Robie H. Harris, said…} “I have been called a pornographer, a child abuser - every name in the book, as the saying goes. But whenever I am called one of those names, I think of that ten-year-old girl. I wish we never had to talk with kids about any of these aberrant behaviors.
But we have to do so because they already know about them to some extent and because kids have a right to have the accurate information that can keep them healthy and safe. They need to know how to get help to make any abusive behavior stop.” This text in a speech bubble takes up most of the panel, with the left third being a portrait of Robie H. Harris, an old white woman with short gray hair. She wears glasses, a black shirt, small earrings, and a dark beaded necklace.
ID8: A yellow text box at the top of the panel contains the text {When right-wing groups petition and protest to get sex education books off the shelves of schools and public libraries, it stops the most vulnerable people from accessing the tools and language that can help them. It helps to shield and hide abusers. It communicates to children suffering from abuse that they are shameful and that it’s not safe or polite to speak out about.}
The drawing below shows the ceiling and top shelf of a library bookshelf full of books. Above the shelf in block letters reads: SEX ED BOOKS DON'T "GROOM" KIDS AND TEENS. THEY PROTECT THEM. In the corner of the bookshelf is a link to the article which inspired this comic: Source: https://bookriot.com/sex-ed books-protect-kids/
/ End Image Descriptions]
Feel free to give constructive feedback on my image descriptions! I know I can be a bit wordy sometimes.
