Drag Story Time, a pre-pandemic favorite, returns to Skylark Bookshop

In its slow, steady return to in-person literary gatherings, Skylark Bookshop is revisiting a favorite pre-pandemic event.

Drag Story Time returns to the downtown bookstore Saturday morning, featuring drag performers reading to an audience largely made up of children and families. The event offers "a joyful performance that touches on important topics," Skylark manager Carrie Koepke said in an interview.

Skylark began hosting the event within a year of its opening, Koepke said, as a way of transcending lip service to ideals of inclusivity and diversity. Bookstore staff quickly realized what they had in hand: a highly interactive experience and an atmosphere of mutual freedom for both readers and listeners.

During the story time, Koepke witnesses "people being wholly who they are and happy about it," she said.

A unique energy: 'The kids seem to realize it is more of an experience than being told a story'

Drag Story Time is one of several events Skylark has hosted in which community members read to children; emergency workers and teachers have led other story hours.

It reflects both a long-standing cultural relationship between bookstores and drag performers, Koepke said — and a natural one. Drag performers are storytellers at heart, she said, and the event gives them another avenue to exercise their theatrical talents.

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The lineup for Skylark events is organized by a local drag queen who performs under the stage name Autumn Equinox. With a background in teaching, she gravitated toward an opportunity to educate and engage with the Columbia community.

Both Koepke and Equinox described story hour as a reciprocal space, with readers and their audience working together to make it their own.

"The kids seem to realize it is more of an experience than being told a story," Koepke said. "... They feel freer to be themselves."

“I’m a drag queen and I have a really big personality. Children’s personalities are also intrinsically large; they don’t have filters — like drag queens,” Equinox said. “They don’t have the societal limitations built into their brains just yet. It’s very entertaining to be around that type of energy.”

Among her favorite moments to date: the time another performer read "P Is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever," an ABCs lesson using unlikely words. The reader stumbled over "Q is for quinoa," Equinox recalled, and a child in the audience provided the correct pronunciation — naturally and without guile, as children tend to do.

The children arrive ready to be entertained, and cherish being read to, Equinox said. They leave carrying an "intuitive, unspoken lesson" about gender identity and possibility, she said, seeing that whoever they are is normal and OK.

In kind, Equinox leaves amused and appreciative.

"It’s very naturally fulfilling. ... You’re seeing the world through children’s eyes and you’re seeing yourself through children’s eyes," she said. "It’s very humbling and very weird."

She enjoys when children seize the opportunity to dress up, saying any party can be a costume party if you try hard enough.

A range of families attend Drag Story Time, Koepke said. Some clearly talk about drag before arriving; for others, it's an introduction to that community. The event meets families where they are, providing an access point at any level, she said.

The audience also includes grown-ups who might simply be browsing the Skylark shelves, stop to listen, then faithfully return, Koepke added.

Choices exist amid controversy

While not a new event for Skylark, Saturday's reading comes amid a changing backdrop. Drag story hours across the country have been disrupted, especially at libraries, with people harassing parents and directing hate speech at performers, The Associated Press reported last month.

Friends who run other bookstores have experienced similar issues, Koepke said. Skylark has received "minor pushback," mostly on social media. But she trusts Columbians to reach appropriate conclusions about how to engage, if they do at all.

"We’re in a wiser community, in a lot of ways. There are people here who don’t agree with it, but they don’t come," she said. "It’s really that simple — you don’t have to feel this experience is for you."

At least two misperceptions about drag story hours exist in the wider culture, Koepke said. One says such events are overtly sexual. But performers know how to remain themselves while scaling the experience to children, she said.

"One major problem is the lack of distinction between events that are built for children and events that are built for adults — where children just happen to be there," Equinox said.

Some objectors circulate online videos from other events as part of their argument. But often these videos capture drag or pride events that weren't actually meant for kids, she explained.

The other, Koepke said, assumes some form of indoctrination takes place. Drag queens might explain some aspect of their performance or identity, she said. But she's watched performers read the room, answering some questions and deferring others to a child's parents.

Ultimately, this is where the onus lies, Equinox said — not on drag performers invited to share a story, but on parents who are free to choose experiences for their children.

An open invitation

Koepke extended an invitation for curious parents to check out the event, saying they can even come solo before deciding whether to bring their child in the future. Experience, as with adult customers who stick around, tends to build comfort and answer lingering questions, she said.

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Equinox echoed the sentiment, encouraging prospective attendees to come only if they feel like it — and to check in with their kids, not assuming interest on their behalf.

Koepke wishes events like this were available when her own children were younger, she wrote in a follow-up email.

"I could tell them over and over that I wanted them to be themselves, to be free to show and share who they were, to make their own decisions about dress, activities, and hair," she wrote. "But I feel that there would have been an added weight to my parenting if I had been able to visibly show them more ways of that sort of acceptance. Drag Story Time does just that."

True colors and affirming interactions emerge throughout the event, Koepke added.

"It is beautiful. To truly see how the queens and the attendees want to share parts of themselves," she said. "To see families showing the importance of seeing the expressed beauty in others — readily and generously offered."

Saturday's event begins at 11 a.m.; admission is free. Visit https://www.skylarkbookshop.com/ for more details.

Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. Find him on Twitter @aarikdanielsen.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Drag Story Time returns to Columbia's Skylark Bookshop