Todd Parr’s experience as an author of a challenged and banned book came long before the coordinated censorship attacks of recent years.

The Family Book (Little, Brown) was published in 2003 and its first reported challenge came in 2012 when a few parents in an Illinois school district complained that the picture book, which describes different types of families, was not appropriate for elementary school. The offending text was a page of the book that says some families have two moms or two dads. The Illinois challenge was just the start. The Family Book made No. 67 on the American Library Association’s list of Top 100 Most Challenged Books from 2010-2019.

The Family Book was targeted anew in recent years because it is often read at drag story hour events. The book’s use in those story times gained more attention when it was shown in a documentary about drag story hour, It’s Okay, that was released last month.

While Parr had always shrugged off the complaints about his work, the personal attacks he experienced on social media were something new.

“I have feelings,” says Parr. “I'm sensitive. There's instant hate. You're a bad person.”

He says he is no longer bothered by it, but he understands and sympathizes with those who are.

“For other authors, it's such a personal thing,' says Parr. "They've shared their story. They opened up. It took them a lot to get that that point, to be able to share their life with the world. And then they get attacked, and their book gets banned.”

That has to be devastating for them, he says, but when it comes to his books, he doesn’t focus on those seeking to remove them.

“I know there are more people that these books help than those that are vocal about what's wrong with them,” he says.

This Banned Books Week, Parr’s thoughts are with the “frontline people.”

“It's the people that are reading those books and trying to be inclusive and get kids to see themselves in the books, those are the ones that are being challenged,” he says. “Those are the ones [whose] jobs are threatened.”

Parr says he is saddened and sympathetic when he hears from teachers and counselors, as well as parents who attend school board meetings to fight to keep his book on the shelves.

Beyond criticism of The Family Book, Parr has been accused of pushing an agenda in It’s Okay to Be Different and Be Who You Are!

“People think those words ‘it's okay to be different’ and ‘be who you are,’ are promoting gayness, because maybe they know I happen to be a gay author,” he says. “The agenda has never been anything more than making kids stronger and more confident. That's the only agenda.”

He sees the current coordinated attacks as a reflection of the country’s culture at-large.

“It's a product of the environment,” he says. “It's the overall tone of the country. There are people that have enabled this hate, created this division. There was no Libs of Tiktok back when my book was [first challenged]. It was a few vocal moms that went to the local pastor of the church. Now it's still very few vocal but very loud people that can organize. All this has been there—the hate, the prejudice—it's just never been okay to spew it.”

That has changed in recent years, he says, and the momentum behind the book banning came with it. Despite the coordinated effort and organized campaign, the prolific, best-selling writer of more than 60 books for kids—whose latest, You Will Always Have Me, was released this week— will not change the way he works.

“I stay on brand about inclusiveness,” he says. “I'm not going to be swayed. I'm staying true to who I am and what I do, and that is just trying to help and make the world a better place for kids.”

Seeing themselves in books makes kids stronger and stronger kids can endure more, Parr says.

During Banned Books Week, he would like to see people counter the message that these titles are dangerous with a campaign that asks questions based on the pure purpose of these books: “What's wrong with being who you are and being a happier, more confident person? What's wrong with making kids’ lives better? What's wrong with helping people?”