Story Time with Drag Queens in Thunder Bay hopes to teach kids 'it's okay to be different'

Inclusion, just being yourself and having love and kindness in your heart are the themes for the first Story Time with Drag Queens event in Thunder Bay, Ont., on Saturday at the city's public library.

"A friend of mine, was connected with someone from the library and they were looking for drag queens to come read to kids," John Forget, also known as Lady Fantasia LaPremiere, told CBC News,

He said along with his drag-daugher, Mz Molly Poppinz, they'll be "reading a couple books and doing some crafts" with the young readers.

'As long as you have kindness in your heart'

Lady LaPremiere believes this library event will help teach kids to just to do what makes them happy, rather than following the "certain ways of being that our society has imposed on us."

"When I was a kid, I was lucky enough to have parents who encouraged my dressing up ... but I was more encouraged to do it at home because ... if I was to do it in public I would have gotten made fun of, " LaPremiere explained.

"I think putting drag queens at the forefront ... shows kids that it doesn't matter who you are, what you look like, as long as you have kindness in your heart."

Drag a place of 'acceptance and unity for everybody'

He said the types of books they'll be reading ties into all these themes.

It's a George Thing is "about a zebra who loves to dance but he's afraid to tell his friends because he's afraid to get made fun of, but throughout the book you find out at the end, his friends are just happy that he was comfortable enough to share what he loves with them."

He said for him, drag has always been a place of "acceptance and unity for everybody," and believes this event will "help kids see that it doesn't matter what you look like as long as you are kind."

Another book the drag queens will be reading on Saturday is called Red: A Crayon Story, which is about a crayon that identifies itself as being blue in colour, but everyone around it wants it to be red.

"We've picked books that are in the spectrum of gender identity and accepting of other people," LaPremiere said. "I think showing kids at a young age that it's okay to be different ... is kind of like a way to make the river trickle upwards, so that the kids can teach the adults."

Story Time with Drag Queens takes place at the Waverley Library on Saturday, May 11 from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Seats are limited, so LaPremiere recommends parents and kids to arrive a few minutes early.