“We received a parent complaint…”: How my presentations to 1,600 students got canceled.

Presentations to students — about research, writing, and revision — are a big part of my job as an author of books for kids. I have had the privilege of performing over a thousand of them since 2009, across the U.S. and beyond but mostly in my home state of Texas.

And each presentation has been just that: a privilege. I fully recognize that I do not have a right to visit any school, nor do I have the right to say just anything while I’m there.

But I do have principles that I’m unwilling to sacrifice in order to be a guest on a campus, and these principles include:

1) Do not allow a minority of parents to dictate which intellectual experiences other people’s kids get to have, and

2) Do not go above and beyond to accommodate restrictions on intellectual freedom.

Now, for the first time in my career, a school district has canceled my scheduled visits. And it was because I would not abandon those principles.

Well, it wasn’t just that. There were also administrative worries so convoluted — so absurd — that when I tell you how the situation unfolded, you’re probably going to have to reread entire paragraphs just to make sure you’re following the leaps of illogic involved.

Plus, this being Texas, there was also an anti-diversity, anti-equity, anti-inclusion law at play. Supposedly.

When these visits began to unravel the Friday before Thanksgiving, the two host schools had already signed contracts and selected the books of mine they wanted me to focus on in my presentations to their first through fifth graders.

School A chose Fire Truck vs. Dragon, How to Make a Book (About My Dog), and Moving Forward: From Space-Age Rides to Civil Rights Sit-Ins with Airman Alton Yates.

School B’s selections were largely the same, though instead of Fire Truck vs. Dragon, it opted for We Match!

Neither school selected Glitter Everywhere! Where It Came From, Where It’s Found & Where It’s Going or two other nonfiction books that I’m currently featuring. In my presentations to Schools A and B, those books would each get a quick mention as examples of how curiosity drives my nonfiction research and my writing, but nothing more than that. I focus on the books that I’m asked to focus on.

I should add, though, that when students have questions about my work, I answer those honestly. So, for instance, should students ask during Q&A which is my most recent nonfiction book, or which book of mine required the most research, my reply would be “Glitter Everywhere!”

Doesn’t it seem kind of odd, though, that I keep mentioning Glitter Everywhere! even though that’s not a book that I was going to feature in my presentations to these two schools? Yeah. That’s a little strange.

So imagine how I felt on November 21 when a representative of School A emailed my booking agent to say that “We received a parent complaint about Glitter Everywhere” and asked that the cover of this book not be displayed at either school.

This is the cover of Glitter Everywhere!

But let’s go back to that thing I said about being honest with my readers. Because there’s another principle that I take seriously:

3) Do not lie to children through omission.

In keeping with that principle, Glitter Everywhere! — a scientific, historical, and cultural overview of the common classroom craft material — addresses complex but relevant topics such as the phenomena of iridescence and interference; holographic printing; microplastic pollution; biodegradable glitter alternatives; the use of child labor for mica mining in India; and roles that glitter has played in glam rock, in drag, in Mardi Gras, and in Ash Wednesday services that signal a welcoming attitude toward LGBTQ+ Christians. These are all significant, age-appropriate parts of the story of glitter.

In a December 4 video call with my booking agent and me, representatives of School A said that “four or five” parents at School B were also concerned about this book — a tiny contingent among the families of 800 students on that campus.

But neither campus library even has Glitter Everywhere! in its collection. So it was highly unlikely that exposure to its sparkly purple cover for half a minute during an hourlong presentation was going to result in students, without some assistance from the adults in their families at a bookstore or public library, asking difficult dinnertime questions about iridescence or holographic printing.

There should be no issue with my presentations, I assured the School A representatives. I even ran through the entirety of what I say about Glitter Everywhere! when I’m focusing on another nonfiction book. It’s not much more than “Raise your hand if you love glitter!” and “Raise your hand if you hate glitter!” It gets big laughs every time.

Anyway, as a matter of principle, I did not agree to cut 30 seconds of banter about Glitter Everywhere! from my presentations.

And things escalated.

In a December 8 video call, an administrator for the school district explained that the concern about Glitter Everywhere! probably came from parents who equate LGBTQ+ identity with sexual activity.

He objected to my suggestion that such a misunderstanding is a form of bigotry. But I do think it’s telling that these parents were not moved to express unease with potentially troubling depictions of polluted oceans or child laborers in this book that — I’ll repeat — my audiences at these schools would not see beyond the cover of.

Again, on principle, I did not agree to exclude Glitter Everywhere! from my presentations. If parents have concerns about a presenter at a school, they have every right to opt their own children out. There was no reason for the district to involve all 1,600 students (and me) in a solution to a nonexistent problem.

But what if there actually is a problem, the district insisted. What if my engaging in a brief exchange with students about little bits of plastic might somehow violate — no, wait, really; hear me out — an anti-DEI law?

What if joking about loving glitter vs. hating glitter might actually run afoul of Senate Bill 12, a new Texas state law forbidding these entirely nonglittery activities?

My booking agent and I emailed the district administrator to ask him to walk us through the logic of why it would be a violation of newly established Texas Education Code 11.005 to mention Glitter Everywhere! Honestly, I was really looking forward to hearing how that thinking went.

But he wouldn’t. Or couldn’t.

We asked the district administrator to consider the points made on my behalf by a district parent. This parent’s email to him expressed concerns about the self-censorship that would result among teachers in response to the district’s overcomplying with a state law and allowing small numbers of parents to disrupt campuswide educational events.

In light of those points, we asked him to rescind his demand that Glitter Everywhere! not be mentioned in my presentations.

Instead, on December 18, he emailed that my visits were canceled.

The district — and Schools A and B — could have made so many different choices along the way.

They could have addressed in a much more limited way the few parental concerns that were expressed about my visits.

Even after initially heading down a different road, they could have recognized that they overreacted in their response to those isolated parental concerns, and changed course.

If the district received excessively cautious — and perhaps only partially informed — legal advice regarding Senate Bill 12, it could have pushed back against that counsel. The district did not have to accept the chilling effect that going above and beyond to accommodate the law might have on classroom teachers.

One may suppose that my principles — the ones the district asked me to sacrifice — are, in fact, fairly common among the families there. It’s even possible that these principles are more widely held in the district than whatever views prompted the discomfort expressed by that minuscule number of parents. That’s a conversation for the families — and voters — in that district to have, and I hope they will.

I also certainly hope that those of you reading this account will recognize the need to proactively let the school librarians, campus leaders, and district administrators in your own community know about your own support for intellectual freedom as well as your opposition to letting a handful of other kids’ parents determine what your own child gets to learn.

Do not assume that someone else will express your views for you. Do not assume that your opinion will be solicited when someone who sees the world quite differently takes the time to raise a fuss in the front office, or that you will even be informed that a fuss has been made. And do not assume that just because an educator knows the right thing, they will have the courage — without your demonstrated and emphatic support — to do the right thing.

I’ve said a lot about assumptions, hopes, and possibilities. What I know for sure is that these are the first author visits of mine that have been canceled in my 16 ½ years as a published author. I wish it had not come to this — the whole situation saddens me — and I wish I had not had to spend my holidays sorting through how it came to pass.

But abandoning my principles, or even just keeping quiet about them, would feel worse. And bowing to pressure to do so would set a terrible example for my fellow authors, for the educators who face such pressures far more frequently, and for the young people we teach.

***

January 20, 2026 addendum: Also under the heading of “There’s a First Time for Everything,” the school district — in addition to insisting that I not mention my book about glitter — made the equally unprecedented request that I not speak about a topic that has come up exactly zero times in my presentations in all my years of speaking to student audiences.

Here is the reply I emailed to a district administrator on December 11, 2025, in an exchange that has been released as part of the district’s response to a public information request filed by a third party:

“I can certainly agree to your request that I not discuss ‘LGBTQ+, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any derivation of those terms’ since I never have discussed these in my school presentations and I am aware that I am not trained or qualified to discuss them with an elementary school audience.”

Should anyone suggest that I responded any differently to the district’s request, our available-to-the-public correspondence should clear things right up.

February 2, 2026 addendum: There’s been some media coverage that has shed new light on how the cancellation of my visits occurred, as well as on efforts by parents in the district to persuade administrators to revisit their decision.

It turns out that only two parents at School B emailed their principal with concerns about my visits, plus the one parent at School A. (As shown in emails released by the district and shared with me, all three parents used the identical wording “has some LGBTQ+ affirming material for kids” in expressing their concerns, demonstrating a coordinated effort.)

For more details, please see these San Antonio Current articles:

Email contradicts Alamo Heights superintendent’s claim about why author visit was canceled (January 22)

Alamo Heights ISD cancels visit by kids’ author over book’s mention of LGBTQ+ people (January 20)

In addition, there was a school board meeting on January 21 at which eleven community members addressed the trustees on the topic of my cancelled visits. You can hear their remarks here.

Now, there have also been second- and thirdhand summaries of the situation — drawing both from this post on my site and from those articles by Michael Karlis of the San Antonio Current — that have mixed up or misstated some of the facts in a way that will be familiar to anyone who has ever played the telephone game.

Maybe it’s the nonfiction author in me, but I believe it’s important for people to have a shared set of facts even if we differ in our interpretation of those facts. And a key step toward having that shared set of facts is to refer to the original sources of information — in this case, the audio from the school board meeting, the records released by the district, Karlis’ reporting, and my own accounting of events — whenever possible.

With that in mind, if I come across any reports that bring to light a factual error in my description of how this situation developed back in November and December, I will gladly set the record straight in another addendum.

April 25, 2026 addendum: Next Saturday, school districts across Texas will have elections for their boards of trustees. For information about candidates in key races, I recommend The Book-Loving Texan’s Guide to the May 2026 School Board Elections, which is compiled by Frank Strong.

The first district listed is Alamo Heights, and my experience there is among the issues addressed in Strong’s guide.

The same goes for this article in the San Antonio Report, “State politics enters rarely-contested Alamo Heights school board races.” It doesn’t mention me by name — which I think is great, as it rightly keeps the focus on the district’s families — but the candidates’ responses to my situation are telling:

In January, district officials canceled an author’s visit to its two elementary schools after a handful of parents complained about the mention of the LGBTQ+ community in one of the writer’s other books. The cancellation quickly drew backlash from families concerned that the complaints had an outsized effect on all students.

But officials said they were being cautious in response to Senate Bill 12, a parent choice bill passed during the 2025 state legislative session that limits classroom discussion of gender identity, sexual orientation, race and topics of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Unsatisfied with the district’s response, parents informally picked two moms from their ranks to run: Lindsey Saldana for Place 3 and Bianca Cerqueira for Place 4, who have been supporting each other’s campaigns. …

Cerqueira, a neuroscientist and mom of two AHISD elementary students, says she filed last-minute after encouragement from other parents who rallied around the author issue. …

But the recent author controversy threw the board races into a spotlight incumbents weren’t expecting, drawing the attention of local political groups like the North East Bexar County Democrats, who quickly endorsed Saldana and Cerqueira and have also gotten involved in board races in the Alamo Community Colleges District and North East ISD. …

Fueled by the author issue, Cerqueira has centered her campaign on keeping religious ideology out of classrooms and maintaining academic freedom.

“I think our district’s interpretation of SB 12 is overly restrictive,” Cerqueira said during an April 14 candidate forum organized by the district’s parent-teacher organization. During the hour-long event in the auditorium of Alamo Heights Junior School, Cerqueira was the only one to talk directly about the author issue.

“The views of a single parent should not dictate the material that an entire district can access. As a school board trustee, I will vote against book bans,” she told the crowd. …

[Place 4 incumbent Hunter] Kingman later said in an interview AHISD could’ve communicated better with families over the author issue, but “fully stands behind the administration’s decision”…

I hope you’ll read the full article. And I’ll be curious to see how things go in next Saturday’s election.

May 18, 2026 addendum: The two challengers in the school board race fell short, each receiving more than 1,000 votes out of around 2,900 ballots cast in a low-turnout election.

“I am proud of what I was able to do,” said Cerqueira, a neuroscientist who moved to the district a few years ago. “I hope more than anything this helps our district and board know there are parents concerned about book bans and other issues.”

The way I see it, more than 1,000 voters took the time to vote for candidates who were motivated to run for office by the district’s placating the bigoted concerns of those three parents. That gives me hope.