A planned middle school book club event at the Bondurant Community Library was canceled this week after growing community backlash over its selection, This Book Is Gay, by Juno Dawson.
The library had scheduled its “In the Middle” book club to meet on March 17 for sixth through eighth grade students. The event was set to include a discussion of the book, along with a bracelet-making activity. But by the night before, opposition from some residents had intensified, prompting library officials to call off the program. Residents who argued the book’s content was not appropriate for middle school students filled both a library board meeting and a city council meeting on March 16.
In an email to IPR, Bondurant Library Board of Trustees President Joshua Bryant said the cancellation was due to “safety concerns for library patrons and staff,” and thanked community members for their feedback.
In a statement read at a packed city council meeting Monday night, Bondurant Mayor Doug Elrod voiced his disapproval of the book's inclusion, calling it "soft porn" and a "how-to instructional manual, shrouded in a cloak of so-called education."
"I don’t perceive this issue as being rooted in sexual orientation. I’m concerned with the graphic level of its content," the statement read. "This kind of content and parental involvement has been at the center of political debate in this state for two years now. This is clearly a controversial issue. I struggle to understand why someone would take a position of clear advocacy and push a known controversial issue. It could only have been out of a desire to push one’s own personal belief system."
Chad Driscoll, Bondurant’s mayor pro tem and a city council member, emphasized that participation in library programming is optional.
“It is a parent’s choice if their child attends a certain program or not,” Driscoll said in a statement. He added that attendance at the middle school book club has historically been limited to “a small handful” of families and that the book selections are chosen by participants, not library staff.
Driscoll also said the library follows policies guided by the American Library Association’s principles on intellectual freedom.
“Based on my conversations with library staff and in how I see it operated, I believe there is no hidden agenda in how the library or staff select programming, reading materials or other items that are available at the library," he said.
This Book Is Gay has been frequently challenged and banned across the U.S. In Iowa, it was removed from libraries in the Iowa City Community School District in 2023. The book addresses topics including sex, coming out, stereotypes and religion.
The Bondurant dispute reflects a larger, ongoing debate in Iowa over age-appropriate materials and the role of public institutions in regulating access to them. In January, a federal appeals court heard arguments in two cases challenging the legality of Iowa’s Senate File 496, which bans books with sexual content in school libraries and restricts lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation in K-6 classrooms. Two bills advancing at the Statehouse would further regulate access: One would prevent schools from partnering with public libraries in ways that allow students to check out materials using school IDs. Another would shift oversight of libraries from independent boards to city councils and tie state funding to policies restricting minors’ access to certain content.
