To introduce the premier of her May 25, 2025 podcast, pro-life activist and president of Live Action, Lila Rose, stated that “dinosaurs, owls and condoms are just a few of the topics sitting side by side on the shelves at your local library.” She might have added that these same books can be found in public-school libraries, not only at the high school level but in elementary and middle schools as well.

Rose’s guest that day was Karen England, president of the Capitol Resource Institute (CRI). She is the founder of CRI’s Take Back the Classroom (TBTC) and Take Back The Community projects. Known also as “The Kitchen Table Activist,” England has spent “over 27 years advocating for parental rights, religious freedom, and the sanctity of life.” Her mission is to empower like-minded parents and citizens to “make a difference at the local level.”

One of England’s priorities is to shine the light on the pornographic books available in most public-school libraries, and as part of Take Back the Classroom, her group of dedicated staff and volunteers are creating a comprehensive, searchable online database that will showcase the more than 400 books containing graphic sexual content currently on library shelves in school districts nationwide.

During the podcast, Rose asked about the structure of the common library systems, both the local public libraries and the public-school libraries. England explained that public libraries are mostly funded locally, with some federal money, and typically governed by city or county councils. “Public school libraries,” she explained, “are governed by the school boards, but librarians get a budget and they pick the books.... There is no process, no second set of eyes on the books they are ordering for our kids.”

When asked how librarians are selected and trained, England said most have masters’ degrees from schools of education, and often the perception is that they know better than parents what kids should be reading. Their training comes primarily from the leftist American Library Association (ALA), which buys into the discredited Alfred Kinsey philosophy that children are sexual from birth and that “kids should be allowed access to any content they want at any age so they can explore their sexuality.”

Lila Rose described what she read on the ALA website. “It talks about schools and minors’ rights,” she said. “These are insane, ideologically driven rights based on radical sexualization, including the right to identify with the opposite sex as a toddler.” She added that the ALA promotes the right of minors to access any and all library resources, and “if it’s available to adults, it should be available to children.”

The website states: “Library policies and procedures that effectively deny minors equal and equitable access to all library resources available to other users violate the library bill of rights. The ALA opposes all attempts to restrict access to library services, materials, and facilities.”

England asked rhetorically when people were going to realize libraries and librarians could no longer be blindly trusted as they may have been when she was a child. “School libraries used to be governed by volunteer parents and the school board. Now, it’s an entire department, and they’re doing their own thing, and they’re stocking our [library] shelves with really, really inappropriate material for kids.”

She described a librarian in Oregon who quit her job rather than stock the shelves in her school library with a predetermined quota of sexually explicit “children’s” books. When Rose asked who made the decision about what books to buy, England explained: “There’s usually a district official that oversees the school librarians, and this official — call him or her a head librarian — sits all the librarians down with the books displayed and tells them, ‘you have to stock this amount of these books and this amount of those books, and this is what you have to do.’ So, there are librarians who love kids and love their libraries but cannot go along with exposing children to what they know is inappropriate and potentially harmful.”

Inappropriate book examples

Rose and England showed the audience some of the grossly unsuitable books that appear alongside what most parents would consider “normal” books in the children’s section of public libraries and school libraries nationwide. These particular books were pulled from the shelves of a public library in southern California.

On a low shelf with books for four-year-olds, Rose found a book titled I Help at Home, which instructs kids on how to set the table, fold laundry, and perform other simple household tasks. “Lovely,” she said in describing the book. “And here’s a book about owls; super cute.” She displayed yet another book about dinosaurs.

“But on the same shelf, maybe a foot away,” she continued, “you can find these books.” She then showed a book titled It’s Perfectly Normal, only, as England explained, “it’s perfectly not normal”. This book is recommended for ages 10 and up but Rose found it on a low shelf in the section for much younger children. “Even for 10-year-olds,” she observed, “this is completely inappropriate.”

The book is illustrated in cartoon format, as England explained most obscene children’s books are so as not to be labeled “kiddie porn,” and in the very beginning it tells kids “there’s not just boys and girls; gender is about the thoughts and feelings of a person about being male or female.” Later on, it describes other genders. The book discusses various sex acts that it claims “are perfectly normal” alongside intercourse. She stressed that the images in the book are “very graphic” and not intended to teach kids about puberty. “It’s about sexualizing children,” she said.

The book also delves into “LGBTQ+ propaganda” and instructs kids that “these are all sexual identities you can have.” It tells 10-year-olds that these identities are all the same and all are normal; that kids “can pick one or another and it doesn’t matter.”

The book describes masturbation in detail, with graphic images of children performing the act. A section on condoms includes instructions about how to use them, and provides information on IUDs and birth control pills — and, as England and Rose reiterate -- this information is available to elementary school children.

A section on abortion asserts that “every woman has the right to end an unwanted pregnancy and there are good reasons to have an abortion.” It discusses abortion along with miscarriage, putting both on the same moral level, and admonishes young readers to have “safe sex.”

Another book Rose presented during the podcast was The Every Body Book which, like It’s Perfectly Normal, seeks to confuse children about gender and tells kids they may “feel like a boy or girl or neither.” England explained, “these books aren’t scientific or about puberty. The Left wants you to think we reject books about puberty. We don’t want to get rid of scientific puberty books. We’re trying to get rid of sexually explicit books.”

The Every Body Book shows pictures of a “pregnant” man and a pregnant woman, discusses “safe sex,” and presents abortion as a choice when people decide they are not ready to have a baby. The book also instructs kids to ask if they are not sure about the preferred pronouns of other people.

England observed that all the authors of these types of books are “far-left progressives,” some of whom have experienced sexual trauma. “But they all believe kids are sexual and they believe in the library bill of rights.” She pointed out that obscenity laws began changing after the Kinsey studies, and that 43 states exempted libraries, public schools, and universities from obscenity laws.

Both England and Rose emphasized that, while kids can obtain the information contained in It’s Perfectly Normal, The Every Body Book, Rebel Girls Celebrate Pride, Sex is a Funny Word elsewhere, the difference is that these library books are taxpayer funded.

In Sex is a Funny Word, young children are fed the familiar fallacy that, when a baby is born and pronounced a girl or a boy, that isn’t always the case. “We may feel we’re the opposite sex and that is who we think we are,” the book states. “Maybe you’re called a boy but you know you’re a girl. Maybe you’re called a girl but you feel you’re a boy. Part of being a kid is learning what you like and don’t like.”

As England noted: “Think about how damaging that [message] is to the proverbial ‘tomboys.’ I have friends who have told me, ‘I am so glad I was not introduced to this as a kid, because I wanted to be a boy. I had all brothers.’

“I’ve gone through hundreds of these books,” she continued, “and they are all propaganda. They are about normalizing all manner of sexual behavior, desensitizing kids, and all very LGBTQ+ friendly.” She added that many of the books hold out as heroes LGBTQ protesters, and all are very negative about fathers, traditional households, and heterosexual marriage.

The solution

Thanks to Karen England and CRI, parents now have a means of checking their local school libraries for inappropriate and obscene books aimed at kids. As England explained to Lila Rose: “We’ve put a website together called Take Back the Classroom.com where visitors can look up their state, their school district, and their school, and see the books that are in that school’s library.” She added that parents can also find excerpts from the individual books. The current TBTC Book List itself is available at this link.

Lila Rose discerned that “there’s a profound difference between a book that’s truly educational about how the body works and the sexual relationship in the proper context, and quite another to put a very overt, dark, and sexually deviant ideology on top of sex and make that the entryway for children to learn about it.” She reiterated the fact that these books are visually appealing and accessible to young children. Yet parents do not know about nor are they invited to be a part of their children’s exposure to what that they might well consider extremely inappropriate and offensive content. “It’s incredibly insidious,” she said.

England agreed there is “no good reason” for these books to be included in any school library where there are underage minors. “Graphic sex, rape scenes, abuse; none of that belongs in the minds of any of our minor children, whether they are ‘germane’ to the story or not.” Both England and Rose agreed the books and their information amount to “grooming,” and that the numbers of minors identifying as transgender or gay are spiking as may be expected in lieu of their exposure to relentless propaganda.

Many of the books on CRI’s list have been around for a long time, and schoolchildren have been subjected to deviant content for years while few were paying attention. But this issue is becoming more well known and now there is a means to find out exactly what’s in the libraries of our public-schools and public libraries through CRI’s Take Back the Classroom and Take Back The Community.

England and Rose encourage parents to visit these websites and take advantage of the information and tools provided by becoming active in their local school districts. (See next article for more information.)

Many viewers responded to Rose’s podcast featuring Karen England, which Education Reporter described in our previous article, Your Child’s School Library, a few of which are included below. Some merely thanked her for exposing this issue on the podcast.

One viewer described her years-long effort to convince her county library system to purchase pro-life books and was denied every time without any reason given. She wrote that after 50-60 denials, she reached out to the county curator and “politely” asked for an explanation. “Turns out [the curator] was pro-life and had no idea this was happening. The denials were coming from a team of just a couple people. Now they have new policies for book requests and it was just because I asked! It doesn’t take a huge amount of time or energy to just contact your county officials and voice your concerns. Of course, this doesn’t always happen in every county, but my county is VERY blue and so there is hope!”

Another viewer, a new mom, said she visited her local public library while she was pregnant and asked afterward: “Where are the animal books? Trucks? Hungry Caterpillars? The children’s section was an absolute joke and was definitely pushing ideology....”

Finally, a librarian responded: “Librarians DO have expertise, and many of us do NOT agree with the ALA. ... Many of us detest the twisting of the freedom of expression for the violation of children.” This librarian added: “It is a PARENT’s job to guide their kids through the public library. The school library should be heavily controlled for age-appropriate and high-quality materials because of the children.” [Emphasis in original.]

Many parents wish more librarians felt the same way.

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