Children’s picture book flagged at Alabama library because author’s last name is ‘Gay’

“Read Me a Story, Stella” is a children’s picture book about a pair of siblings reading books together and building a doghouse. However, because the author’s name is Marie-Louise Gay, the book was added to a list of potentially “sexually explicit” books to be moved from the children’s section of the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library (HCPL) system.

Gay’s book has never been “mistakenly censored,” according to Kirsten Brassard, Gay’s publicist at Groundwood Books.