#male-librarians — Public Fediverse posts

“A haven” and place of knowledge: The key role of libraries and librarians in “Gay the Pray Away”

“Valerie Danners is in a cult. She just doesn’t know it yet. But when she stumbles upon a queer romance novel at the library, everything about her life—centered around a fundamentalist Christian homeschooling group —is thrown into question.”- Book’s official description on Penguin Random House, to give an example of what got me into this book.

Last year, I noted that I purchased a book during a sale of Pride-themed books on Bookshop and came across a book by Natalie Naudus entitled Gay the Pray Away. One of the key protagonists of this novel, Valerie Danners comes across a queer romance novel at the local library and begins, plus her coming across a new girl in town named Riley, that turns her world upside down. In my post the, I noted that libraries and knowledge are key to the book, with librarians supportive of her learning more about queer people, likely even letting her take the aforementioned queer romance book with her, and pointing out, how at one point, her restrictive parents do not allow her to go to the library. Their reasoning is simple: they know that the information there goes against the teachings of the Christian fundamentalist cult she is a part of. In this post I’ll expand on that and talk about more of the themes in this queer young adult romance novel and connect it to my previous posts.

Libraries and knowledge are key to this book even from the first chapter. Valerie, who is half-Asian/multiracial/biracial is performing and acting like she is a reactionary bible-thumper like her parents, who have been pulled into a misogynistic cult (she doesn’t realize the extent of this at the time) led by a White man. She goes to the library, despite her “friend” Hannah telling her that she can use the approved Bible encyclopedia (which only allows people to see certain information) but she resists the words of her “friend.” She later convinces her parents, with her mom from Taiwan and her dad a White man from the U.S., to bring her to the library, which she calls a quiet “haven” (see page 16) so she can do “some research” for her school paper, claiming she wants to read a Sean Hannity book (a lie). She acts like she is going there to do research but she actually wants to go to the young adult section, so she can lose herself in fantasy. She explains how she was once at a protest against a book deemed “sinful” with her mother, and how she lives to read, with what she says on page 17 making clear what’s she going through:

Every change I get, I’m tucked in my closet, devouring anything [to read] I can get my hands on. My life and world feel so small and strict and cold. I see the same people all the time who believe the same things, dress the same, talk the same, look the same. But books? Books are my escape.

She soon comes across a book by queer non-binary romance novelist Casey McQuiston, named One Last Stop, flips/zooms through it when her mom isn’t looking, calling it a “forbidden” book (since it is gay), but says it looks “pretty and joyful,” and steals the book, tucking it into her skirt. A librarian, a White man with glasses, accidentally crashes his book cart into a shelf, and while she thinks she will get caught as the alarm goes off, the librarian says it isn’t an issue, adding that their system is buggy and tells her to have a nice day. She places the book she had into the bottom of her backpack while in the bathroom, and lies to her mom about what happened. Going forward, it is an open question as to whether the librarian knew she had the book or not, which is something open to interpretation.

Going into the second chapter, she hides the book so she can hide this “contraband,” while putting on a good face, and kept in this sort of prison, even thinking that her brother David is a sort of ally (I’ll get to that later too). It is interesting that she sees her closet as a place where she is safe (likely inferring to the closet that queer people find themselves in before coming out) and it is where she rips off the cover of the book, throws it in the toilet, and adds a post-it note to it, if it is found. This paranoia is part of her daily life, where she is being watched and controlled, with her parents limiting information (there’s no Wi-Fi and the her brother’s bedroom was removed), she hides this book behind others, so it can’t be found, and her brother watches pirated anime, as she knows full well.

With all of this, it is no surprise that she hates the “approved” books about motherhood and being a “godly woman,” because who would like those books? She sees fantasy as a way of escape and reads One Last Stop all night learning about words like queer and bisexual (one reviewer noted that she is implied as bisexual) and sees the world of gay and queer people as joyful, warm, and fun. This contrasts with the controlling attitude of her mother and father which is abusive in more ways than one. While it is a while before she returns to the library or talks about the “secret stolen book” (One Last Stop) as she briefly calls it in Chapter 4, she does come across one more person who changes her life: a girl her age named Riley. She instantly falls for her, with Riley helping break the mindset which is holding her in this terrible situation. The same goes for her talking to Mira (formerly Miriam) who shakes her mindset.

In fact, it isn’t until chapter 7 that the aforementioned book appears again, with Valerie noting she has been “reading, rereading, and re-rereading” the book, while smiling, and begging to ride her bike to the library herself, where she, goes in, as she puts on page 59, and continues on page 60, saying specifically:

“…the farthest corner, in the cubicle with the computer facing the wall and my seat facing the entrance, I get on the internet. With one eye on the entrance in case someone comes in, I start with L and read my way through articles on the GBTQIA and the +. I read articles by the Episcopalians…about homosexuality and the Bible, and how the conservative ideology I’ve been taught is not universally accepted…[later] I’m back at the library. I google every “dangerous liberal doctrine” I can remember being trashed in sermons and lectures…I read about feminism, intersectional feminism, Kimberle Crenshaw, and critical race theory.”

She goes onto note how her parents censor the home internet, review the search history she and her brother go through, and question them about sites they visit. She says she feels “drunk with the sheer power of knowledge” from the library, which she calls the “unregulated wilds.” As the chapter goes on, she comes across the same librarian as before, who wears a sweater, who encourages her to take a queer book, noting it has a “super discreet cover.” As the book goes on, Riley and Valerie “Val” get closer, with Riley helping puncture Val’s impression of the restrictive situation she is in, as she slowly realizes she is in a cult after all.

Sometime later, Val notes, on page 87, she gets lost in books in the library and even smells them, kisses Riley (they both kiss one another various times), and admits she “stole a book from the library” (page 112). The latter surprises Riley, who likely sees her as rebellious. Beyond more chapters showing the insidious of this cult and the forced male-female courting pushed onto boys and girls, she goes to the library over and over, saying she read “every gay book” she could find, whether about critical race theory, her rights, abortion, and more, while appearing submissive to her parents (page 126). She even gets a hidden message, through email, that Riley sent her, hidden within a chemistry paper, sending messages back and forth in the document (pages 140-141), while on the library computer. She continues doing this, while she claims she is studying (page 157), delivers books to Mrs. Miller from her mom.

The library serves as a place Val can be free without parental permission, where she can be herself (see pages 168-170 for instance). She even creates a secret Instagram account where she sees a picture of another girl kissing her cousin, Mira, on the side of the face, and begins a correspondence with her, asking for her help. As noted in the rest of the chapter, she makes clear she is so paranoid that she wants to log into Instagram, delete her messages, even her account, noting wanting the wrong people to find it. However, she doesn’t do that and meets with Mira, telling her what she is going through, allowing them to connect. The library serves as a place of acceptance in contrast to the strict, domineering nature of “home.”

While Riley and Val bond more and their romance deepens, with Riley even coming over for a sleepover at Val’s house, everything goes downhill after David accidentally witnesses (see page 199) Riley and Val kiss and snitches on them, betraying Val, and causing her a world of hurt. He did not have to expose her like that, but it shows that no one in the family can be trusted, how the propaganda can get to anyone, even her brother, who watches pirated anime. It is later revealed, on pages 201 to 202 that her parents found her “queer books” and sketches Riley did of her, even though she had been so careful, believing she was right to be paranoid. Her email password is changed, she is banned from using the computer and the kicker: she is “not allowed to go to the library anymore” and they return her library books, while her secret stolen book (The One Stop) is literally burned on a grill, and set on fire.

Of course, this sends Val into a spiral and depression, with her parents prohibiting her from speaking to Riley. She lashes out at Hannah, understandably, who claims she has to repent and repeats the same cultish viewpoint, even willing to cut ties with Val, showing she has lost to the propaganda. She later gets money from Mrs. Batra, and goes to a bookshelf, where she hides the money in an old encyclopedia (pages 207-209), and she later lashes out at David, who claims he is questioning things, even though he turned her in. She also notes that when she snuck books from the library and googled the conservative canon, she realized how problematic the books she had were, how racist they were (pages 213-214). In a heartbreaking scene, after she turns down the arranged date between her and Andrew Patterson, she says, on page 216:

…Screaming in frustration, I throw myself into my closet and pull the accordion door shut. And there, in the dark, without a single friendly book to comfort me, I cry.

Chapter 28 is when the library gets to chine once more, with Val taking money from Mrs. Batra, and running to the library, going through the woods, and refusing to marry Andrew, no matter what, and is determined to contact Riley. She logs into the computer, but her parents changed her password, then creates another account, and desperately writes a message to Riley, but not Mira, as she doesn’t want her parents to find out (see page 219). She gets back just in time and no one is the wiser. Chapter 29 is the key chapter not because Val works for Mrs. Batra again, but because she goes to the library, or because she is nervous to talk to the librarian who helped her before (she thinks he has “more recommendations for queer books with discreet covers”), and she gets what she was hoping for (see page 225). There’s a message from Val, saying she will pick her up on February 1st, and Val responds she will be ready.

For the next two weeks she plays “by the rules,” takes her Bible study seriously, and everything else, to allay any suspicion. She is able to leave, despite her dad being furious at her, but her mother, unexpectedly is a bit of an ally of sorts, and she gets away. She gets her sort-of happily-ever-after with Riley, as they live together, even if money is tight, away from the cult-like atmosphere. Toward the end of the book, Val notes that she bikes to the local library, reads, and begins to write a bit (see pages 241-242), and her mom helps her get the documents she needs, while in her own way she is supportive.

In the final part of this book includes resources, a reading guide, and an interview with the author. In the second of these is a question noting that Val’s turning point is when she picks up One Last Stop from the library, and another asks what role the library played in Val’s “journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance” (pages 247-248). In the third of these parts of what constitutes the book’s appendix, Naudus notes that during her childhood, books and reading were a “huge escape” with her getting in trouble for reading when she was supposed to be praying, adding that seeing yourself in a story is “like looking into a mirror,” and notes her inspirations, what queer joy means to her, and more (see pages 249 to 253).

I’ve written about theft, acceptance, and library as a place of refuge time and again on this blog, even linking some of the above here. I like how the library is shown as not a neutral place, but instead a place of knowledge. It provides Val with the information she needs to learn more about her surroundings, about her world, away from restrictions imposed on her. This is why Kendra Winchester of Book Riot called, in a review back in June 2024, this book a “love letter to libraries and the freedom they represent for their patrons,” adding that “without the books she reads at the library, she might never have been able to imagine a different future for herself.”

The role of the library in spreading knowledge, even that which challenges orthodoxies, is why some have began book bans and even some have burned books they have hated, not wanting anyone else to have that knowledge. They find that knowledge is dangerous because it challenges their worldview. This is why it is so important to protect libraries, whether academic, special, public, or otherwise, from attack by governments, individuals, and groups.

© 2025-2026 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

#abusiveRelationships #arson #AsianAmerican #bookBurning #books #Bookshop #censorship #Christianity #cults #family #GayThePrayAway #informationProvider #lateBooks #lesbians #LGBTQ #librariesAreContested #librariesAreNotNeutral #libraryAsRefuge #libraryProperty #maleLibrarians #misogyny #OneLastStop #propaganda #quiet #reading #religion #restrictions #socialMedia #TaiwanesePatrons #theft #WhiteMen #WiFi

A Nazi-supporting librarian, Allison Davis, Elizabeth Stubbs Davis, and mass book burning in “Origin” film

Allison Davis (on left) and Elizabeth Stubbs Davis (on right) search for certain books, in a flashback scene (of sorts) narrated by Isabel Wilkerson. This is the beginning of the scene, but it goes further than this, as I’ll explain in this post. Allison says the library is “beautiful” even though it doesn’t have the book they are looking for.

A pivotal scene of Origin, a 2023 biographical drama film by Ava DuVernay, a Black woman and director known for the historical drama Selma (2014), the documentary entitled 13th (2016), other films. Origin is based on Isabel Wilkerson’s 2020 book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents and her journey to write this book, takes place in a library in Germany, in 1933. In this post, I’ll talk about that scene, and another, which take place in a library, in this film.

The film shows Allison Davis and Elizabeth Stubbs Davis, a married Black couple, in Berlin, Germany, in 1933, who are studying there. They are looking for books by Erich Maria Remarque, at Germany’s premier library, and find nothing. Elizabeth says she could get lost in these books (and ideas) “forever” and Allison says the library is “beautiful.” They walk through the reading room, past four German patrons, with White skin, and are having a fun time. The librarian asks for their library cards, as they are checking out two books, which seems normal, and they comply. And then she asks for their passports! Again, they comply, and a patron watches them.

The librarian pages through their passports, he asks when Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front will be back in the library. She looks at him, does not answer, and stamps the books. The same patron, as before, looks at them, clearly concerned.She is serving as the enforcer of rules and social norms here.

She does not answer. Instead, she asks for their passports, stamps their books, and they go on their way, as everyone watches them. He looks at her, worryingly, as does his wife, Elizabeth. She slides the books over to them, holds their passports, almost with concern, putting them down on the table. What was to come is that they would witness events that would change the world.

The librarian’s demands of her patrons. The first one (shown in the image in the upper left) is reasonable, but the other one (in the upper right), their passports, is NOT reasonable! In the third image (in the lower left), she looks at Allison when he asks about All Quiet in the Western Front. In the fourth image (in the lower right), she stamps their books, ending their interaction.

Later in the film, Wilkerson herself goes to a library. A helpful librarian, a White German man, shows her the book she requested, with a list from October 1935, noting a part of the text showing that all of Remarque’s books would be destroyed. Later, she looks on the library stacks. Right after this, it flashes back to the past. As Elizabeth and Allison are on the steps outside the library, a friendly White German man named Erich Kästner overhears they are asking about Remarque but says he couldn’t catch the librarian’s answer. He asks them if they know what is happening in Germany. They don’t.He tells them that “everything is being torn apart.”

Later that night, he brings them to the infamous book burning, likely when the Berlin chapter of the German Student Union made an organized attack on Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sex Research on May 6, 1933. As the Nazis march around and chant, a stack of burning books is shown, and some holding torches. One person shouts about ending the period of “exaggerated Jewish intellectualism,” and people agree wholeheartedly, raising their hands in Nazi salutes, claiming that the German soul can now “breathe again,” and to end “moral corruption.” A truck approaches the stack of burning books, with people taking books out of the back and throwing them onto the fire, all to protect “decency” and “morality.”

In the present, Wilkerson walks into the square where the burning happened and a German woman says there are memorials to nearly everyone victimized by the Nazis, no gate or entry sign, open day and night, standing “to bear witness.” The film flashes back again, showing Germans throwing tens of thousands of books into a fire, burning them to a crisp, as they shout. A German woman in the present says “20,000 books were lost that night,” while Elizabeth and Allison are growing more concerned and horrified. Kästner suggests they leave Germany and go somewhere safe (their home) instead, which they agree with. The film comes back to the present, with audio of someone saying to burn the books of Sigmund Freud, Heinrich Mann, Ernest Glaser, Remarque, Karl Renner, and Kästner. Also, empty bookshelves, where books would be, is displayed, symbolic of all the books that were lost that night.

The German woman also shares a quote by a German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine: “when you burn books, you end up burning men.” All of this makes one thing clear: the strict librarian depicted is aligned with this book burning. Elianna Bernstein, the main protagonist of Bibliophile Princess, would be horrified by all of this, as a person who detested book burning and directly called those who did it monsters. She is right! More than that, the librarian is even more aligned with oppression than Francis Clara Censordoll in Moral Orel, or Cletus Bookbinder in Rocky & Bullwinkle, to give two examples I can think of at this point.

One of the scenes in the film shows the horrifying book burning in Berlin in 1933. I had another screenshot from this film in mind as well, but this is the more poignant one.

The film also notes that Elizabeth and Allison cut short their advanced studies at the University of Berlin (obviously!) and they began their research for a book which would be entitled Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class in a Southern City. The book, which came out in 1941, would also involve research in collaboration with their White colleagues, Burleigh and Mary R. Gardner, who were Harvard researchers. The book would serve as a major influence on Wilkerson (and others) and her work.

The two librarians noted in the cast list at the end of the film: Nazi Librarian and Berlin Librarian, played by Cristin König and Matthias Miller respectfully. I have highlighted both with yellow boxes for emphasis. The librarian in this film could, possibly, be described as a bit of a spinster, but is more of an anti-social librarian, which Jennifer Snoek-Brown defines as hoarding knowledge, wearing conservative clothing, having poor social skills, is very unfriendly, and “rates the library and its rules above the public.” This librarian is more than that, however: she is an enforcer of Nazi agenda, a footsoldier of oppression, and doesn’t seem to care about that!

I did deeper dive and found the screenplay, which notes even more library scenes, including Wilkerson at the New York Public Library, noting her tenderly pulling a book from the grand shelf. It also shows that the aforementioned library scene was at the Berlin University Library, noting that Allison and Elizabeth were “extremely light-skinned African-Americans who could pass for white on first glance,” and it also depicts them as even more romantic than the film. Interestingly, this screenplay has the librarian as a White man rather than a White woman. I wonder why it was changed. It noes he views them with suspicion, with the screenplay saying he “reviews the passport and card as if it’s a matter of national security”! The librarian almost interrogates Allison, and Elizabeth notes that she, and her husband, work with Dr. Diedrich Westermann. [1]

The screenplay also notes that the librarian places the books on the counter, and waves the next person over. Right after this is their conversation with Kästner, includes more dialogue from Elizabeth than in the film. then the book burning scene happens at the Bebelplatz, with open-bed trucks (unlike covered ones on the film) filled with books, with a crowd of 40,000 people. The screenplay shows more dialogue from a Nazi student organizer, specifically calling out Sigmund Freud, Erich Remarque, Georg Bernhard, Heinrich Mann, Ernst Glaeser, and Kästner. The scene plays out pretty similarly from there as in the film, except that Joseph Goebbels is introduced (in the film he is shown but not named directly), who calls out “intellectual garbage.” The same scene depicting Wilkerson meeting with the White British woman, Nigella, is shown as well. In those ways the film is similar. [2]

The screenplay, like in the film, continues the story of Allison and Elizabeth, noting they fled Germany when Hitler took power, as they had seen “the Nazis burn books and jail teachers,” which gave Allison new insights into the “nature of hate” and inspiring “him to study the process of injustice.” There are other mentions of libraries as well, like Wilkerson researching in a library, a gala at the New York Public Library which Wilkerson attends with her husband, Brett, and another one where she doesn’t. There’s also a “cozy library room” where Bhimrao Ambedkar reads with intensity in 1918. [3]

As it turns out, Kästner did, in real-life, actually attend the book burning. One biography says that he was “among the few authors, perhaps the only, who was present, when the Nazis burned books in Berlin on May 10, 1933, his own included,” but that he was “arrested by the Gestapo in 1934 and 1937 because he used to cross the border regularly to consult his Swiss publisher.”

In terms of the actors, Cristin König and Matthias Miller, they are both very talented. König is known for her roles in many German-language films and TV series since the late 1980s, while this appears to be Miller’s first role in the film, if IMDB is right. While König posted about this role on social media here and here, she never did so with much depth in her posts, even though other posts show her as very anti-Nazi, which is funny considering her character in the film! But, perhaps that was a reason she took the role? I haven’t seen any critical commentary of her role in the film when I searched for this, which is unfortunate, considering her key role!

Apparently a librarian named Kashif Andrew Graham introduced the film in one location and another, Mary Anne, shared her thoughts on the film. The latter did not mention either librarian character. Why?. I don’t understand that at all. How could they miss this? I hope Jennifer Snoek-Brown writes a post on Reel Librarians about these scenes as well, considering it was added to her master list of English-language films back in April 2024. I’d love to see her analysis.

© 2024-2025 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Notes

[1] DuVernay, Ava. “Origin” screenplay, Jun. 25, 2024, accessed on Sept. 9, 2024, pp. 36-38.

[2] Ibid, 38-41.

[3] Ibid, 87. On the previous page, it also describes them as “the couple we followed in Berlin during the Nazi book burning.” For the other mentions, see pages 16, 25, 32-33, and 102.

#AllQuietOnTheWesternFront #BibliophilePrincess #bookBurning #books #CletusBookbinder #femaleLibrarians #JenniferSnoekBrown #maleLibrarians #MoralOrel #Nazis #NYPL #oppression #OriginFilm_ #passports #RockyBullwinkle #teachers #WhiteLibrarians #WhiteMen #WhiteWomen

When people think about librarians and libraries, they may point to films, live-action TV shows, or even novels. However, one area is often missed: animation. In Hollywood, stereotypes are plentiful, as librarians are used as “shortcuts to propel the plot forward,” in the words of Jennifer Snoek-Brown, author of the Reel Librarians blog. While this generally applies to animation as well, two recent shows buck those stereotypes, depicting libraries and librarians positively.

The first of these shows is Cleopatra in Space, loosely based on Mike Maihack’s graphic novel series and currently streaming on Peacock. The show follows teenage princess Cleo, who has been transported 30,000 years through time and space from Ancient Egypt into the Nile Galaxy. Wrestling with the newfound responsibility of being the “savior of the galaxy” prophesied to defeat the evil tyrant Octavian, she attends an Egyptian-themed futuristic high school on the planet of Mayet to hone her skills. While Octavian has destroyed most of the recorded knowledge available in the galaxy, Cleo’s school library still contains vital information. In the show’s third episode, Cleo travels to the school library after hours with her mentor Khensu, and two of her friends, Akila and Brian. Khensu shows her to the library’s Ancient Egypt section, with only a few physical records contained in a trunk, all accessible in holographic form. (In real life, these artifacts would be housed in a library’s special collections.) This positive depiction is possibly offset by what Cleo does next: dismayed by the lack of records about her homeland, she thinks about her dad, floats in the air, glows pink, then sucks all the electricity of the school and nearby city into her body, causing a massive power outage. The message of this moment is that libraries need adequate resources and support to assist the communities they serve—otherwise there will be information deficits that put patrons at a disadvantage. Libraries are also mentioned throughout the series as a beloved hangout space for one of the main characters. Akila likes to spend her time in the library studying and insists “all the cool students” spend time there too in the show’s 12th episode. In some ways, Akila reminds me a bit of myself in college: while in college, I extensively used the well-endowed campus library to study, research, and relax, even when some of my friends disliked it.

Another animated show, the recently concluded Netflix series She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, prominently features librarians in a few episodes. The season two finale focuses on two middle-aged gay Black librarians, George and Lance, and their library in a magical forest called the Whispering Woods. This portrayal contrasts with the original 1980s series, She-Ra: Princess of Power, where a stereotypical elderly white long-haired librarian aids the protagonists. George and Lance are fathers to Bow, one of the show’s protagonists; in the episode, Bow and his friends, Adora and Glimmer, work together with the librarians to translate an ancient message. Their efforts inadvertently release an elemental monster into the library, and in the havoc that ensues, Bow reluctantly reveals his true identity as an expert archer and rebellion fighter, a secret he has long concealed from his dads. While he expects his dads will rebuke him, they embrace him instead, accepting him for who he is—many viewers see this storyline as echoing family coming-out stories from the LGBTQ+ community. In the 10th episode of the show’s final season, Bow and Glimmer reconnect with the two librarians. Both recount their discoveries: an ancient rebellion against the planet’s first settlers and the existence of a fail-safe for the superweapon in the planet’s core. This information becomes vitally important in the effort by the show’s protagonists to stop the world (and universe) from being destroyed, setting the stage for the groundbreaking kiss in the final episode. On the whole, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power shows librarians as helpful, welcoming, and diverse, a refreshing antidote to more stereotypical media about libraries, which is all too common, even in animated series.

While these are only two examples, there are many more which I am continually reviewing on my blog, Libraries in Popular Culture.

© 2020 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: This is reprinted from my post on iLoveLibraries. The way the photos are formatted in the article there is a bit different from here, and are slightly different than the ones there, but otherwise, I didn’t change anything about the text. Enjoy!

https://popculturelibraries.wordpress.com/2020/08/12/these-animated-shows-defy-library-stereotypes/

#ALA #AncientEgypt #BlackLibrarians #BlackMen #cats #CleopatraInSpace #EgyptianPatrons #elderlyPeople #GayLibrarians #GayPeople #hair #ILoveLibraries #JenniferSnoekBrown #LGBTQ_ #LibrarianAbsent #LibrariansOfColor #libraryPatrons #maleLibrarians #ReelLibrarians #research #reviews