Read Me: This New Book Teaches Kids How to Swish, Snap, and Twirl Like a Drag Queen

Its author, Lil Miss Hot Mess, explains how drag can teach kids about critical, independent thinking (with a touch of glamor).

By Matt Baume

May 5, 2020

Check out more from Read Me, our queer literature column, here.

Lil Miss Hot Mess is on a mission to indoctrinate the nation’s youth into a lifelong love of libraries and literacy — and her secret weapon is a brand new children’s book entitled The Hips of the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish, out May 5 from Running Press Kids.

Lil Miss Hot Mess is a founding member of New York’s chapter of Drag Queen Story Hour, a series of unaffiliated events that combine the wit and glamor of drag with gender- and sexuality-expansive readings for kids, young adults, and adults proper. Her new book features bright, imaginative illustrations of dancing drag queens accompanied by kid-friendly song lyrics designed to get youngsters excited to read, move around, and express themselves.

In her day job, Lil Miss is a PhD student in media studies at NYU, and her research into queer culture informs her drag persona and her interaction with kids. While her story hour events are silly and fun, behind the makeup is a more serious intent: Her goal is to give kids the tools they need to think critically about the world around them at a time when misinformation is everywhere. Now, with the chaos of quarantine placing live events on hold, she’s had to rapidly adapt to reach young minds online — with an audience that may be broader than ever before.

Joseph Tekippe

Your book seems like it’s designed for sing-alongs, is it based on activities from actual Drag Queens Story Hours you’ve hosted?

It’s based on a song that I probably started doing two or three years ago at story hour events. I just came up with the song on a cab ride on the way to an event and it worked even better than I’d intended to do.

Part of what I like about it is it gets kids moving, and it connects to what drag is about — try shimmying your ships and your shoulders, try giving a twirl. Of course, not every kid is going to want to do all those things, but as a kid I was teased for being feminine and discouraged from wearing pink, and I want to give kids a space to be a little sassy and walk with a swish. Being able to witness kids and parents let loose in that way is really satisfying.

For the illustrations, someone recommended Olga de Dios to me and I was so thrilled to discover her work. She’s a queer illustrator and a lot of her work before was monsters and creatures with a gentle adorable quirkiness to them that felt so much in the spirit of drag. I sent her some references of my friends to show her the diversity of the drag world that I'm in, and she went with it.

How has quarantine affected Drag Queen Story Hour literacy programs?

With Drag Queen Story Hour we’ve taken everything online, which can be frustrating and challenging but it does open up new opportunities to expand into areas we weren’t in before.

Every time before this, when we would post a listing for an event people would be like, ‘when are you coming to my town?’ And the reality is we’re not a road show, we can’t come to a lot of different places. I don't know for sure that those people are tuning in now, but there have always been people hoping they could experience this.

At the in-person events we usually do a craft. Some chapters do face painting or dress up time. We’re doing as much as we can on livestream right now. Drag Queens Story Hour has two or three live streams happening every week, and aside from craft stuff we’re able to read books and sing songs. I think as a performer the hardest thing is not getting to interact with the kids.

Today I did one on Zoom that was like Bring your Kids to Work but at home, and that was fun because I could see the kids and I could see them dancing along. A lot of parents take pictures of kids watching and upload that to social media, so I do get a lot of feedback.

How do kids respond differently to you when you’re in drag?

It’s hard to know because most of the kids I know I don’t see out of drag. In general I think some kids are really excited, some are really intimidated. Like if they’re meeting Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, I think to them I am a little bit of a celebrity or Disney princess or movie star — not to toot my own horn! But they see me as an otherworldly creature. The kids probably see me more how I want to be seen than adults do.

Do LGBTQ+ people face particular issues around literacy, library access, and representation?

I think that really depends on where in the country you are. A lot of educators and librarians don’t really know how to talk about queer issues with kids. There’s a lot of fear about what’s appropriate. Drag Queens Story Hour is able to give kids a taste of different cultures in a way that’s kid friendly, but that reflects a lot of the truth behind drag.

It’s about dressing up with a purpose and taking a risk, tweaking aspects of dominant culture so you’re not just imitating but transforming. And I think that’s something that helps kids understand what queerness feels like without needing to get into adult stuff.

There’s also a long history of drag performers being part of the community, volunteering, leading protests. being an anchor of various communities and social justice movements.

Tracy Chow

What do drag artists bring to library events?

I always get a little cranky when people are like,”‘drag goes back to Shakespeare.” Cross dressing certainly does, but I don’t think it’s until the late 19th century and into the 20th century that drag as an art form really emerges, specifically commenting on dominant culture. Specifically with the rise of camp — camp and drag are cousins.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we’re living in an age of fake news and misinformation, and I think drag does a service in helping us understand nuance.

How does drag help convey nuance in a culture of misinformation?

I’m thinking about how there’s the classic Susan Sontag definition of camp, and it’s not about refuting a fact, it’s about supplementing it, tapping into some creative potential that’s there but not seen.

If you think about drag as gender play, part of what sets drag aside from trans identities or other gender performance is that it’s always holding a tension: You are looking at someone and you might assume that they identify differently, and there’s an enticing illusion that you want to believe.

It’s very knowing and being in on the joke, versus the gaslighting or knowing that you’re being told something that’s factually inaccurate. You’re in on it.

A lot of my research is around Facebook; I was involved when drag queens were getting kicked off Facebook for having “fake names.” The tech world couldn’t understand that complexity, because they said that if you have more than one identity that’s an example of a lack of integrity. Drag queens embody multiple personas and it’s not about a lack of integrity, it’s about expressing your creativity and exploring different sides of yourself.

So how do you bring those ideas to kids in a way they’ll understand?

I think the lesson for children is to teach them to ask questions and not accept everything just because a teacher or parent or authority tells them.

Trump says something and people believe it because he has some authority, but what we need to do as engaged citizens is question it and think about other possibilities, check the sources. Drag may not be academic or encourage people to check sources, but as a form it’s about revealing, concealing, and winking, and I think those are things kids can pick up on.\

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