Books | Culture & Community | LGBTQ | Pride Month | Arts & Culture | New Haven Free Public Library | New Haven Pride Center | Westville | Literacy
Lucy Gellman Photos.
Tiki Malone sat up completely straight, her eyes dancing beneath a curly, blush pink wig and thick, long lashes that swooped out at the ends. In one universe, she was still in New Haven, a fleet of young readers hanging on to every word. In the other, she was perched atop a castle, watching a pint-sized knight pen a letter to an underwear dragon. As the dragon began to eat the letter, she pouted and looked around the room.
“That’s right,” she said matter-of-factly, a dozen pairs of eyes looking cautiously back. “Underwear dragons can’t read. Maybe because they don’t have fabulous library and librarians to help them.”
Last Wednesday, Malone brought that story to the Mitchell Branch Library, as part of a Pride Month drag queen story hour that is fast becoming an annual tradition. A collaboration between the New Haven Pride Center and New Haven Free Public Library, the event brought in nearly 20 kids and families, many of them dancing their way through books, bubbles, music, and a crash course in drag performance. It is the second drag artist story hour Mitchell has held; the first took place during New Haven Pride last September.
"I want to be able to facilitate that kind of joy,” said Quigley. Bottom: Liam Trueman and his mom, Ashley. While the two live in Hamden, Ashley is a nanny in Westville and comes to Stay and Play each week.
“So often, the queer experience has been steeped in trauma and struggle,” said Children’s Librarian Sarah Quigley, whose weekly “Stay and Play” storytimes are so popular that she has implemented two back-to-back sessions on Tuesday mornings. “And that is very real, I’m not trying to discount that. But there’s so much joy too. I want to be able to facilitate that kind of joy.”
That joy was on full display as kids streamed into the room, snagging their spots on the brightly patterned reading rug and surrounding tile floor. Some, motioning for parents and siblings to join, snuggled into laps and propped themselves against sun-dappled chests, shoulders and arms. Others pulled themselves up and perused a display of LGBTQ+ kids’ books, from And Tango Makes Three to Born Ready and Jacob’s New Dress.
At the front, Malone took a seat, reaching into a furry green backpack—just imagine a benevolent Oscar The Grouch, complete with big doe eyes—to pull out If You’re A Drag Queen And You Know It. Written by Lil Miss Hot Mess in 2022, the book riffs on “If You’re Happy And You Know It,” introducing young people to the staples of drag—Blow a kiss! Mouth the words! Say “Yas Queen!” Strike a pose!—with a cadre of illustrated queens as diverse as the drag landscape itself.
As she opened to a series of fictional queens, she giggled aloud at the names. There was Retta Booke, a queen with cotton candy colored hair and a string of pearls that glinted above her shoulderpads. There was Sharon Boogies, whose full, burgundy lips pointed into just the tiniest of smiles. There was Sleeping Judy, a starry-eyed queen with both a full bouffant and a full beard to match. At each, Malone paused and smiled, her fingers tracing their faces with care.
“Okay!” Malone said. “If you’re a drag queen and you know it … blow a kiss!” Batting her eyes just slightly, she beamed and blew a loud kiss across the room. In the audience, parents mimicked the movement, their mouths suddenly fish-like. Malone, not missing a beat, repeated the directions with a wiggle of her shoulders. “If you’re a drag queen and you know it, blow a kiss!”
To her left, three-year-old Liam Trueman stopped waving his Pride flag absentmindedly, listening closely to each word. Leaning against his mom, he burst into a smile and lifted a hand to his mouth. As he pulled it away, he made a smacking sound, letting it hang in the air with a theatrical flourish.
“Why wouldn’t you want to teach inclusivity and acceptance?” his mom Ashley later said with a swish of her long, rainbow-dyed wig.
At the center of the room, Malone didn’t miss a beat. “If you’re a drag queen and you know it, strike a pose!” she read, bringing a hand dramatically to her forehead as she closed her eyes and tipped back just slightly. When she reopened them, pose-striking was in full force across the room. Holding her little sister Philippa, Shiloh Anderholt moved just slightly closer to the front, making a face.
The directives continued, sometimes coming three at a time (listen to and watch the whole book here). Young readers said “Ta - daaaa!” like it was officially their business. They winked with the best of queens, sometimes bringing their whole faces into the gesture. They turned around and shimmied in place. With a glint in her eye, Malone turned the page to Sharon Boogies, and laughed out loud.
“If you’re a drag queen and you know it, shake your bum!” she said, raising her eyebrows as though she might be scandalized by the suggestion. “If you’re a drag queen and you know it—”
“In the library?!” Quigley interjected, her face illuminated by windows at the back of the room. The room dissolved into laughter before coming back to order, kids shouting the words “Yaaaaaaas Queen!” By the time the book was over, the number of flags seemed to multiply, and the room swam in waist-high bursts of rainbow.
“Who would like to maybe sing a song?” Malone asked as Quigley turned on a gum-pink bubble machine in the corner of the room, and began to carry it through the space. From a speaker nestled somewhere nearby, the swirling woodwinds from “Part of Your World” suddenly came to life. Malone stood, musing aloud with the lyrics. Wouldn’t you think I’m the girl/The girl who has - ev-e-ry-thing?, she sang, and attendees began to join in.
It was as if someone had cast a mellifluous spell on the room. Quigley and Children’s Librarian Michelle Ziogas, who works at the Wilson Branch Library, added their voices to the mix. Kids who had milled around the perimeter of the reading rug now swayed and twirled, half-bouncing beneath a curtain of bubbles. When the backing track cut out, Malone raised her voice and kept going, conjuring an underwater universe as she crooned.
By the time she reached for Scott Rothman’s 2020 Attack of the Underwear Dragon, the room was fully mesmerized. In the book, a young kid named Cole is so captivated by the story of the Knights of the Round Table that he writes lovingly to Sir Percival, hoping to join him as an assistant knight. Cole is in luck—his wish is granted, and just in time to trade barbs with a ferocious, fire-breathing dragon who threatens to destroy the kingdom.
Along the way, he learns that knights are not fierce and militant, but smart and gentle and often in need of assistance. That men can be all of those things, too. Rothman never has to say that outright: he shows it as Sir Percival cries, as the act of writing unlocks a tidal wave of emotions, as Cole acknowledges his fear in the face of the dragon.
Malone with Lila (top) and Cait Murray and her son, Silas, and Jamille Rancourt and her son, Zeca (bottom).
“Look at the Underwear Dragon!” Malone said, her fingers traveling up and down a scaly, reptilian form that sported a huge, diaper-like pair of white underwear around his wide, soft belly. “He’s wearing tighty whities!”
As readers clapped, Malone described her own love for libraries, which began during childhood. When she became a mother 12 years ago, she and her son Finn would make trips to the Stratford Public Library nearly every day, delighting in the snugly packed, bright shelves of books that made the children’s section feel like a wonderland.
“We would go home with like, 10 books at a time,” she said. When she came out four years ago, fusing her love for libraries and her love for LGBTQ+ rights just made sense.
“This is really about showing the kids that there are people that are like them, that you can grow up and still have fun and still play dress up, be full of whimsy,” she added moments later, between pint-sized fans eager to meet her. It’s personal too, she added: she identifies as queer, and 12-year-old Finn is trans and proudly out.
“This is to know that you’re not alone,” she said. “To know that there are people out there that love you and see you. I tell all of my drag friends whose parents rejected them, ‘If you don’t have a family, I’m your family.’”
John Harrison, who had arrived close to the end, watched as his two kids fanned out on the playmat, making the most of the few minutes before a second Stay and Play at 5 p.m. Born and raised in New Haven, Harrison hadn’t known about the special story hour beforehand, he said—but he was thrilled to see it. Both his mom and one of his sisters are happily married to women.
“This is not strange to us,” he said as his 5-year-old, Anisah, brought over a copy of Trinity and DeShanna Neal’s 2020 book My Rainbow. “I’ve been around this community my whole life. I didn’t step out of my box to come here today—it’s just part of our lives.”
As she readied the room for a 5 p.m. storytime that was fast approaching, Quigley declared the story hour a success—and said that she’d love to see similar initiatives pop up more than once a year. As someone born and raised in Texas, where it has become dangerous and difficult to be out as LGBTQ+ and seek gender-affirming care, she doesn’t need to imagine what these events might mean for queer kids and straight allies-in-the-making: she’s lived it.
“You know, if I had had access to books like these when I was a kid, my life would have been so different,” she said. “I grew up in an evangelical world, so these kinds of books and this kind of topics were very much not accessible to me. I didn’t really know who I was—all of who I was, you know?”
"It's very close to my heart—" she paused as 3-year-old John Harrison III raised his arms and roared, dissolving into giggles as she guessed whether he was a bear or a dinosaur. "Especially with the young ones. There's a whole community of us who are here to support you, and you're welcome here, whoever you are. And whoever you end up being."