My book was BANNED

I'm Paul castle and my children's picture book was banned let's talk about it okay so first a little backstory I wrote an illustrated my first children's book called The Pen roomrooms back in 2022 here's here it is take a look this is a book that I wrote and Illustrated based on inspired by my wedding to my husband Matthew so way back in 2019 Matthew proposed to me and after I said yes like we almost immediately started planning our wedding together too soon I think I I in retrospect I wish we had actually waited because it's kind of fun to be a fiance for a while but everybody was like when's the big day so we were like okay I guess we have to start planning this thing so we picked the date we picked the venue and we were agreeing about everything like it was perfect it was almost too good to be true and then our first disagreement we could not agree on the wedding invitations I wanted to include a picture of us on the invitations Matthew was like no there are enough photos of us we don't need any more pictures he's like uh you're an artist why don't you just draw us that was a good trick to use flattery it it worked but instead of drawing us as humans because we are human I decided to draw us as cute cuddly adorable little penguins why because penguins are already dressed in formal attire yes they're wearing little tuxedos they're ready for their big wedding day that was the reason I chose Penguins um I slapped these little Rainbow bow ties on the characters as you can see on the cover of the book here and I called them the pen groms that was just one of those moments of serendipity like the name just popped into my head Peng groms Penguins Peng groms I was like the it's meant to be so the Peng rooms were really popular with our wedding guests and eventually with our social media followers we were posting pictures of them I was drawing them you know on the wedding day Christmas how did they spend the holidays um the honeymoon and and then and then when the pandemic hit like I I drew them what were they doing during the lockdown so I drew all these little scenarios and on our wedding day December 15 2019 the penams actually appeared on our our our wedding cake my cousin created these two ceramic versions of the characters and we put them on our cake so this was like a major theme at this point so then as I said lockdown happens 2020 Matthew and I were married now we're locked up together and you know both of our careers sort of like ground to a halt I was previously showing my art in public spaces Matthew was performing his violin in public spaces and sort of that all ended so we were just now at home like what do we do that's when Matthew said you know you should pursue your lifelong dream of writing and illustrating a children's book and I was like yes absolutely this is the perfect time to do it we have all this extra time but I said what's it going to be about and he looked at me like you're kidding right I mean obviously the pen groms so I got to work writing that very day I started sketching stuff out I I I wrote a first draft we kind of worked on it together sketched out all the pictures on my tablet and I thought okay well what's the next step publishing it so we turned to our fan base and we kickstarted it on kickstarter.com fully funded we printed the books and this is how they turned out as I've shown you it's like a beautiful hard cover I'll never forget receiving yeah I smelled it as soon as the books arrived I smelled my books because like that new book smell and it was just like a an incredible moment for me to finally have my story in a book it's something I'm just so proud of you know it's about uh these penguins Who deliver wedding cakes to different Weddings But the story itself is about all the little like hij Jinks that the characters get into and how they work as a team and at the end of the story they actually have their own big wedding day that everybody attends I knew immediately that I wanted to tell like the next chapter in that story there had to be a followup now that Pringle and Finn were married what were they going to do next so I immediately got to work on the sequel which I called the secret ingredient and this is a book in which Pringle and Finn pursue their goal of becoming parents but first they're delivering birthday cakes to different kinds of families so the birthday parties that they end up at for example here's the sloth birthday party as you can see here there's two sloths they're slow dancing upside down and they're Two Dads seagull two moms so this book came out November 2023 so the end of last year and this one was doing super well so much so that Barnes and Noble reached out asking me if I wanted my book in their store both of them actually both books in one of their store locations where they also invited me to do a special read aloud and a book signing and a Q&A I was like what is even happening I mean I am a self published Indie author illustrator of children's books and now Barnes & Noble is reaching out to me I was like I was like this I was like I don't even know what to say I'm speechless it was so exciting they ordered 200 copies of my books so they wanted 100 secret ingredients 100 of these that's a big order it was such an amazing moment the whole crowd was there everybody was super supportive they were laughing at all my jokes uh all the kids were like right in front of us some of them even got up and like pointed to things right at the book and then ran back to their seats and behind us were like all the books all of these books were lined up and like shimmering and like you can see they have a little foil to them and it's something I'll never ever forget so that was back in April and then just a couple months later another bookstore reached out an independent bookstore right here in Seattle called Charlie's books and again Charlie want wanted to kind of recreate a similar moment that we had at the Barnes & Noble experience he ordered 150 books 100 of the Peng rooms 50 of the secret ingredients and we also make these plushies based on Pringle the Penguin and so Charlie wanted a 100 of these at the event as well as mentioned I am so new to the world of books and Publishing and what is normal and what is not and I didn't know at that time that bookstores reaching out to place orders of 200 and 150 books was abnormal I thought okay well this is the only experience I'm having I thought this was like the norm I I have learned since that these large orders are highly unusual and so I I I now realize that and I'm not taking that for granted so we did the Charlie's book signing event and there was like this long line that snaked out the door and everybody was coming up to talk to me and I was signing their books and I was chatting with them and you know because I'm blind I couldn't see the line I couldn't see how long it was so I would just be like lost in conversation with somebody as I was signing their book and Matthew was sitting there with me of course cuz I said Matthew you have to be right next to me and underneath the table there was Mr Maple but Matthew would be like nudging me and like hitting my leg because apparently I was like talking way too much and because I couldn't see like all the people waiting I just kind of got lost in the moment andew was probably thinking Paul if you don't hurry this up we're going to be here until midnight okay now we get to the part where things took a little turn so right around the time that Charlie's bookstore was reaching out to us and organizing their event uh another bookstore reached out to organize a similar event and we started chatting with this really sweet woman who was a mother and was actually a fan of my books owned a copy of the secret ingredient that she said her son loved so much he requested it U almost on a nightly basis she said she was reading this to him all the time she even sent us a photo of him sleeping with his Pringle plushy Peng room plushy and that again is just one of those surreal mind bending moments I'm just like my heart is so full so this bookstore they wanted 100 copies of just the secret ingredient and 100 of the Peng room Plushies that they were going to turn into a display in their shop ahead of my arrival and I was going to do the book signing the reading the Q&A the whole thing so we packed up those things and we shipped them off to the store ahead of time just as we had done for Barnes & Noble and Charlie's books a few days went by and I checked the tracking number to see if the boxes had arrived and they had then a few more days went by and I heard nothing and I thought okay they're busy whatever I'll just wait to hear from them after about a week I decided to reach out just to say hey did the boxes arrive in one piece is everything okay finally 4 days after sending out that email I received an email from a different employee at the book store somebody who I'd never heard from before I had no contact with I we we were only talking to the one person the the fan that had reached out initially and this email was very different it felt very different it was lacking the warmth of the interactions i' had before and that was the email that I shared publicly in a video that later went viral my screen reader was reading the email to me and as many many of you saw I was reacting to that in real time the email said I'm writing with some unfortunate news it seems that the person who placed the order for your books that other employee was not entirely up to speed on our policies and we returning the books to you uh so obviously I called the store and asked to speak to my original contact that's when I was told that she no longer worked for the company another shock I asked where did she go did she leave like she was organizing this whole event with us and she declined to answer then I pressed her on the policies cuz I really wanted to understand and maybe just squelch my suspicion about what these so-called policies were and that is when she said to me the message of the book doesn't align with the bookstore this book message here is really just about love creativity courage patience it's just a celebration of families and the only thing that I suspect was the so-called message that didn't align would have been the inclusion of different types of families families with two moms and families with two dads it's really the only thing the book contains that a certain subset of people would find objectionable but I have long been a believer in making lemonade from leavens this is how I've always lived my life I was told that I was going blind at age 16 and I had a dream of being a a visual Storyteller I knew as a teenager that you have to take life's blows and turn them into something that works for you that is why I chose to immediately pivot and share the story of my book in the face of this discrimination and share it with people who I believe would really want the book but before posting the video I felt it was my responsibility to really do some research on what had just happened to me because I didn't really understand what it all meant what it all added up to and ultimately what is defined as a band book and so I had to do a little Deep dive and so that's when I discovered the the definition of what a book band is and in this country books are banned all the time but a lot of people think book Banning really is only happening within School libraries and school reading lists the definition is quite a bit broader than that and it includes private individuals removing books from bookstore shelves because of an objection to the content or the material of the book this is what had just happened to me you may think that book Banning means a book is no longer available and of course that isn't true a lot of you probably know that the Bible is banned in a lot of places Harry Potter is banned it's on a lot of banned lists in fact The Grapes of Wrath is banned why are bookstore Bannings so much more pernicious and underreported simple because bookstores are privately owned entities they get to decide what's on their shelves every day just because they don't order a book and put it on their shelves doesn't mean they banned the book right those are never really brought into question there aren't a lot of situations in which book Bannings in private bookstores are made public because there isn't a need to publicly state it and why would a bookstore do that because it would be really bad publicity anyway so they get to decide what's on their bookstore shelves a really good example of this a few years back there was a small chain of Christian bookstores that was carrying a self-help book by a Christian author who later came out in support of same-sex marriage when she publicly announced that she was in support of samesex marriage some of the material in her book was given a fresh perspective and the Christian bookstore decided to strip the book from their shelves this was actually reported on by a lot of different news Publications and it was defined as a band Book bands can occur in a very targeted very localized way they only embolden the movement on a larger scale I also learned that most book bands most of them start with just one person one complaint is all it really takes and these things can gain momentum and and really get out of control so why did we want to use our platform to share this story without naming and shaming the bookstore well when you have a platform as large as ours is you have to be very careful about that kind of thing uh you could easily incite a riot I mean we have had hundreds of people reach out to us both publicly in our comments and privately in our DMs asking for the name of the bookstore so that they could Burn It To The Ground you know just because I don't agree with the store's policies does not mean I want the bookstore to burn to the ground or for people to perish because it is their legal right to carry whatever book they want just as it is my right to create these stories and share them with the audience who also wants them so this is where the story takes a really big and wonderful turn because after after sharing that video online it got millions and millions of views and almost instantly we sold the 100 books that had been returned in addition we sold completely out of our stock we had no books left so we launched a pre-sale for the next shipment coming later this summer and within I think just 2 days we also sold out of that entire shipment that's already on its way it was such an overwhelming tremendous like incredible heartwarming response I went from like actual tears of sadness to tears of joy within just hours it just filled my heart it really restored just any feelings that I had lost over this any negative emotions that I was experiencing because of the events which transpired they almost immediately evaporated it was just so uplifting I also want to share with you that since this story went viral many bookstores have reached out wanting to carry the book so we're getting the book out to I think dozens of bookstores all over the United States and there will be more author events signing events there have been overseas Publishers that want to translate the book in different languages and get them into the hands of people all over the world which is just mindblowing I do want to share something rather unfortunate that did happen during all of this okay and this is a really important note because my original video included the first name of the book seller who banned the book people went on a little mission to try to find this person and I left the name in the video thinking that well it's it was such a common name that I thought well no one's ever going to find this person like this felt to me kind of like a harmless thing to include because it was never something I never wanted to shame the person or for anyone to find the bookstore as mentioned that's just not my style so unfortunately people did go after other people just random people who shared that common first name and they found one person in particular who had a username that also included uh the word book and people kind of filled her comment section with with really mean-spirited messages attacking them believing they were the person who returned my book boxes and they were completely wrong this was not the person in fact it was a person up in Canada and everybody knows I'm from Canada uh who doesn't even own a bookstore yet but hopes to one day and I was just so horrified to see this whole thing unravel as soon as she reached out to me to let me know about this we made a public video asking people to stop doing this and to support this person instead and she's since received thousands and thousands of new followers and filled her comment section with love and she and I have been talking privately she actually wants to order the book and make it part of her book club in her future bookstore she wants to carry both of the books but interestingly it was just an example of how out of hand things can get when somebody even has a morsel a crumb of a clue um confirming for me that were this bookstore's name to actually get out there it would be extremely dangerous and again that is just not something I want to see happen so I really appreciate everybody who's been so respectful of my decision not to name the store in question instead using this as an opportunity to spread awareness to talk about the fact that censorship and banning on very localized levels does indeed exist and to familiarize people with you know what their rights really are in these situations but also to encourage people to share their stories of inclusivity and find the right places to share those stories because our numbers will outgrow theirs over time and those bookstores and those beliefs will likely shrink smaller and smaller and smaller until they don't exist anymore they will go out of business just because the attention isn't there anymore and lastly I just have to thank all of you every single person who has supported me on this journey it's been a wild ride thank you for your love your generosity your kindness spread Spreading the News talking about this important social issue supporting the book sharing this with all of your friends your family your kids what more can I say I I've already talked my head off if you have any questions please go ahead leave me a comment if you did listen to this entire thing please leave me the book emoji I'm partial to the stack of books you know the little not the open book but like the the little stack that's the one I like so if you actually made it to the end of this drop that in the comments below and if you want to hear me read both of my books you can I have recorded a read aloud here on the Matthew and Paul official YouTube channel you can f I burped I burped you can find both of those here on the YouTube channel just uh go search for I'll leave the links below or maybe they'll be the things that appear at the end of this video I don't know we'll figure it out but go because they are out of stock right now so if you want to know what the books are all about you can experience that at no cost totally free share it I've had people reach out and say um that they've been listening to it every night before they go to sleep they like grown adults are like Paul's reading me a bedtime story so they put it on at the end of the day all right I'm going to let you go thank you so much thank you for spreading the love love you guys bye [Music]

Channel: Matthew and Paul

Views: 25,050

Keywords: blind, retinitis pigmentosa, book banning, book banning in the US, book banning school board meeting, book banning debate, book banning in schools, book banning news, book ban backfires, children's book, kids book, picture book, book ban school board, book ban protest, book ban interview, book ban meeting, book ban debate, banned books, banned book, banned book list, banned books in the world, banned books in schools, banned books you should read

Id: 9AqI_UtKvzk

Length: 20min 20sec (1220 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 12 2024