An elementary school in small-town southeastern Michigan has banned “Captain Underpants and the Sensational Sag of Sir Stinks-A-Lot” from its upcoming book fair this year because a main character ends up being gay.
The school is Arborwood Elementary School in Monroe, Mich., reports Detroit ABC affiliate WXYZ.
The book, the 12th in a series by Dav Pilkey, features a section — spoiler alert! — in which the fourth-grade main characters George Beard and Harold Hutchins travel 20 years into the future and encounter their 30-year-old selves. Harold is gay. He is an artist and married to a guy named Billy. The couple somehow has kids.
Martin said the decision not to sell the Captain Underpants book that reveals a gay character was made by the school’s parent-teacher organization and Arborwood’s principal.
“The school decided we’ll make it available online,” the superintendent told WXYZ. “But, we won’t make it available in the actual book fair itself.”
Other books in the Captain Underpants series will be on offer at the Arborwood Elementary book fair.
“I support the decision of the parent group and the principal for handling it this way,” Martin told the Detroit ABC station.
Positive reviewers gush about it.
“From the very first Captain Underpants book, I have seen so many children absolutely delighted,” one happy Amazon critic elates.
“My son and daughter didn’t even notice the two dads together with their kids,” swears another. “Pilkey makes no comment on the subject because it has nothing to do with the story.”
One-star reviewers disagreed.
“Harold has a husband and has kids. I am really disappointed now,” says one.
Unhappy purchasers note the large amount of political content in the children’s book including a chapter entitled “The GOP Guarantee.”
“My son was so confused by the references to the GOP, Fox News and other references meant to slam Republicans that he put the book down and went to play,” explains one dissatisfied customer.
Pilkey, the author, defends his Captain Underpants series.
“My primary goal with Captain Underpants is to make kids laugh and to give them a positive experience with reading at a crucial time in their development,” he wrote this summer in The Guardian.
The Monroe, Mich. school district was last the subject of national news when a middle school history teacher was suspended because he informed students that white entertainers used to paint their faces black to imitate black people and showed kids a video about it.
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