Battle of The Books

When fifth-grade teacher Cindy Adams-Daniel picked a 32-page children’s book about penguins to include in bins at Summerfield Elementary School this past spring, she didn’t think too much of it.

“We got to choose the book we wanted to use,” she said. “It was an inspirational thing to bring diversity, to show different people in the school.”

The idea was simple: Each grade would have a bin of books chosen by a group of teachers for their classrooms. All of the grades had the same books, some of which were accompanied by a curriculum, and teachers had the flexibility to decide how to use them.

Adams-Daniel, who has taught in Guilford County Schools for two decades, chose a book portraying different kinds of families.

“Me being a gay teacher, I brought the book And Tango Makes Three,” she said. “We have a lot of gay parents, and I feel like we needed representation.”

In April, teachers presented their chosen literature to school staff, including the principal. Within two days, Adams-Daniel’s book had made news after the local Moms for Liberty group published a press release objecting to And Tango Makes Three.

“Moms for Liberty had gotten a hold of it somehow,” Adams-Daniel said. “They were saying we were pushing this gay book. I don’t know how they found out about it. It had to be someone inside the staff.”

The next month, Summerfield’s principal pulled And Tango Makes Three from the kindergarten through fourth-grade bins. Teachers, including Adams-Daniel, as well as several Summerfield parents, pushed back, citing concerns about bans targeting LGBTQ+ characters and diverse stories.

Now, months later, the book is back in the fourth-grade bin. But many of Summerfield’s parents and educators still have questions about why it was pulled in the first place, especially as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives (DEI) are increasingly being challenged by national and local conservative groups like Moms for Liberty.

“I feel like Summerfield is Ground Zero of banning books,” Adams-Daniel said. “I think we’re being made an example of by other people, and that makes me feel horrible.”

‘A Climate of Fear’

And Tango Makes Three is based on the true story of two male penguins adopting and raising a chick in New York’s Central Park Zoo. Since its publication in 2005, the book has become one of the most challenged books in the country, according to the American Library Association. 

In recent years, Republican lawmakers in North Carolina have passed laws targeting books like And Tango Makes Three. The 2023 law, SB49, the “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” outlines the types of content children can be exposed to in schools.

“Instruction on gender identity, sexual activity, or sexuality shall not be included in the curriculum provided in grades kindergarten through fourth grade, regardless of whether the information is provided by school personnel or third parties,” the law states.

A more recent law, SB227, pushes back against concepts like DEI and casts topics like race, sex, and gender identity as divisive. HB805, also passed this year, requires schools to catalogue all the books in their libraries and classrooms.

Conservative groups like Moms for Liberty have used these measures to target public schools and libraries, according to Shireen Campbell, professor of English and Educational Studies at Davidson College, who teaches on and writes about book challenges. The goal, she said, is to curb the kinds of books that can be taught.

“We’re starting to see a predictable pattern of complaints,” Campbell said. “Often based on pervasive misunderstandings of the purpose of books in schools.”

Moms For Liberty was founded in Florida in 2021 as a parental rights organization opposing masking and vaccine mandates during the pandemic. The group says it is “dedicated to fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Moms for Liberty as “extremist,” saying the group uses its platform “to target teachers and school officials, advocate for the abolition of the Department of Education, advance a conspiracy propaganda, and spread hateful imagery and rhetoric against the LGBTQ community.”

While Moms for Liberty has only been around for a few years, the group has seen a huge increase in popularity and national relevance since its inception. The organization has hundreds of chapters across the country and has allied itself with right-wing conservative politicians like Ben Carson, Ron DeSantis, Betsy DeVos, and President Donald Trump.

In recent years, the organization has pivoted,  taking aim at content classified as “DEI” or “woke,” according to Campbell.

The issue of book challenges is not new. In the past, Campbell said, individual parents might have reached out to teachers to ask that their kids not be taught the curriculum for a specific book. But recently, outside pressure groups like Moms for Liberty have sought to ban certain books from schools outright.

This creates “a climate of fear and caution,” Campbell said. “It’s pre-emptive purging of content.”

The Guilford County Moms for Liberty chapter, active since 2023, posts regularly on social media about books it is concerned about within the school system.

In June, the group said in a Facebook post that it was “deeply troubled” by books like Pride Puppy! and What Are Your Words? in elementary school libraries.

“These books confuse young children, promote divisive ideologies like queer identities, drag queens, trans-kids, and made-up pronouns, and erode parental rights,” the post reads. “It’s unacceptable that GCS uses this radical content to groom kids into believing they can change their gender or pronouns based on fleeting feelings. This has no place in public schools. GCS should focus on education, not sexualization!”

So, when Adams-Daniel’s pick of And Tango Makes Three somehow ended up on social media and then in a press release written by the local chapter, she was shocked but ultimately not surprised.

Uncharted Territory 

On April 24, shortly after the staff meeting where teachers presented their books, Moms for Liberty Guilford County published a press release alleging the school system had violated  SB49 by allowing the inclusion of And Tango Makes Three, and its accompanying curriculum, into Summerfield.

“Reports indicate that educators have been directed to incorporate literature and curriculum materials from WelcomingSchools.org targeting K-4 students, directly contradicting state law and GCS policies aligned with SB49,” the group wrote.

The next day, the High Point Enterprise published an article highlighting Moms for Liberty’s press release.

Within two weeks, And Tango Makes Three was removed from the book bins for kindergarten through fourth grade at Summerfield.

On May 8, Moms for Liberty disseminated a newsletter celebrating the book’s removal via email and by mail to some families.

After learning about the inclusion of And Tango Makes Three and its curriculum, the letter said, the group “took swift action” and notified Guilford County Schools Superintendent Whitney Oakley and school board members, “demanding an investigation” into the matter.

“We are pleased to report that the non-compliant materials have been removed from K-4 classrooms,” the letter reads.

The school district never received a formal complaint from Moms for Liberty, Oakley told The Assembly. Instead, the decision to pull the book was made by Summerfield’s principal, Denise Ebbs, Oakley said.

“Administration decided this book was more appropriate in fifth grade,” Oakley said. 

Because the book wasn’t an official part of the curriculum, removal did not have to go through the formal challenge process, Oakley said. Instead, the book was removed from the K-4 book bins but remained in the fifth-grade bins, according to the district. The book was also never removed from the school library, Oakley said. The district does not know if any other books were removed from the bins.

The main problem with the book was its pairing with the Welcoming Schools curriculum, Oakley said. That curriculum seeks to use literature to “explore the diversity of families.”
That violated the state law, according to the school district.

The book was reinserted into the fourth-grade book bins at the beginning of the 2025 school year.

The school received no formal complaint from Moms for Liberty, the school said in response to a request by The Assembly. Ebbs declined to comment for the story.

But Adams-Daniel and parents whose kids attend Summerfield say the timing of events points to Moms For Liberty as the instigator in the incident.

“I felt targeted by Moms for Liberty,” Adams-Daniel said. “I didn’t do much pushback because it upset me that we were trying to do a good thing.”

Word of the book’s removal quickly spread among concerned parents. On May 13, close to 100 Summerfield parents gathered at a school board meeting, many speaking out against the book’s removal. 

One of those parents was Brandon Daughtry, whose son is in third grade at the school. As a gay man with adopted children, Daughtry said, Moms for Liberty’s rhetoric is hateful and detrimental to families like his.

“I want [my sons] to feel like their school is a safe place,” he said.

Daughtry has been married to his husband, Josh, for almost seven years now. As soon as they heard about And Tango Makes Three being pulled out of the book bins, Daughtry and other parents scheduled a meeting with Principal Ebbs. She was sympathetic to his concerns, Daughtry said, but it seemed like the school was “being pulled from both sides.”

“I don’t think this is something that Summerfield has handled before,” Daughtry said. “It’s uncharted territory.”

Adams-Daniel echoed Daughtry’s feelings. She doesn’t blame the school’s administration for what happened.

“I did what was asked of me from my administrators, and my administrator did what was asked of her,” she said. “And I feel like it came from the top because of this law and the Parents’ Bill of Rights.”

While the school district says it had no communication with Moms for Liberty or any part in the book’s removal, at least one member of the group works at Summerfield Elementary.

Lynne DeVaney is listed as the treasurer for the Moms For Liberty’s Guilford County chapter, according to the organization’s website. The school district confirmed this week DeVaney also works as a technology assistant at Summerfield.

When The Assembly reached out to the chapter for an interview with DeVaney, chapter chair Maria Adams said DeVaney was not available for comment. Adams referred to the April press release and May newsletter instead.

On May 19, Jill Wilson, an attorney for the school district, met with educators at Summerfield to discuss And Tango Makes Three.

In recordings obtained by The Assembly, Wilson, an attorney with the Brooks Pierce law firm, said the book was pulled because of the accompanying curriculum and because it sexualizes the penguins by showing a mating ritual. This does not take place in the book.

“There is nothing in this book that is sexually explicit,” said Campbell, who has written about And Tango Makes Three.

Book challenges by conservative groups often stem from a misunderstanding of the function of books, Campbell said.

“There is a misunderstanding that what’s in books is what’s being taught to you,” she said. “But just because something is in a book, doesn’t mean the book is promoting it.”

She pointed to William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, a canonized classic, as an example.

“Reading that play doesn’t mean that the school is promoting dueling or hasty teen marriages or suicide,” she said. “But all of those things happen in the play.”

In the same way, reading And Tango Makes Three “doesn’t teach kids to be queer,” Campbell said.

Instead, removing the book does more harm than good, said Daughtry.

“It’s blatantly discriminatory,” Daughtry said. “The book is based on the story of two male penguins adopting an orphan penguin. This is my entire family.”

More Than Penguins

As a gay father of three adopted sons, Daughtry said And Tango Makes Three allows kids like his to see that adoptive families are normal.

“I want my son to be able to pick up a book and see that his family is not weird,” Daughtry said. “That’s what I wanted them to understand. This is a lot more than a same-sex penguin couple. This is about adoption. It’s so important to them.”

Nikki Yannone currently has one child at Summerfield and another who will attend next year. She’s also a mental health counselor.

Books like And Tango Makes Three increase empathy and “have a direct positive impact on students, she said—and multiple studies illustrate it. 

“If you look at the research, having access to literature that represents this community helps students feel understood and seen,” Yannone said. “By having this normalized, it reduces the stigma and reduces chances of being ostracized.”

Book challenges ignore the lived realities of anyone who doesn’t represent the majority, normative, “American” culture, Campbell echoed.

That’s exactly why parent Emily Teixeira rallied parents to push back.

“My concern is outside, partisan, political organizations have an influence on what instruction in our classrooms looks like and call it ‘parental rights,’” she said. “But what about the parents who are not part of their organization, whose ideologies are very different?”

‘Moved By Numbers’

After she heard the book was being pulled out of the bins, Teixeira began asking questions. She met with the principal and contacted to the school board. She began talking to other parents and mobilized them to the May 13 school board meeting.

Then she started what she calls a “malicious compliance” campaign.

Because of SB49, parents may submit a formal complaint to Guilford County Schools pertaining to instructional materials. Based on this logic, Teixeira decided to lodge a complaint about all books that discussed heterosexual couples.

“If this is the law, if the reference to two gay penguins is a problem, then referencing two straight parents is a problem as well,” Teixeira said.

Although she never received a response from the school district, Campbell said Teixeira’s reaction can be effective.

“You can file objections to content that you know the people who are doing this really want to keep,” Campbell said. She pointed to an example in Utah in which parents pushed back against a book ban by using the state’s law to question the Bible.

“I think parents showing up en masse, I think school boards are moved by numbers,” Campbell said.

They’re not the only ones.

Seeing so many Summerfield parents at the school board meeting was inspiring, Adams-Daniel said.

“Half of the parents were from my class,” she said. “I stayed home and watched and cried.”

When Adams-Daniel decided to go from working at Title I schools to teaching at Summerfield two years ago, she knew it would be different. But what she found was a welcoming community.

“I felt safe enough to put myself out there,” she said.