Fabulous Fantastic Storytime a Halifax Pride first
Halifax drag queen Rouge Fatale says she hopes the event will become an annual tradition
For the first time in Halifax Pride's 29-year history, a drag queen sat down with children of all ages and read storybooks.
Rouge Fatale, voted the city's best drag queen eight times, read four books at Halifax Pride's Fabulous Fantastic Storytime — including And Tango Makes Three, Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress, A Tale of Two Daddies and Heather has Two Mommies.
"I think it's super important ... that kids can actually see that being part of the LGBTQ community isn't something they have to hide away from," Fatale told CBC Radio's Weekend Mornings. "This is just opening up more doors and showing the kids that it's perfectly fine to be gay or lesbian or queer in this community and in this province."
Each book has an LGBTQ theme. For example, Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress is about a little boy who decides to wear a dress to school.
"He gets put down by a couple of the kids but it doesn't really stop him from going to do it ... I thought that was a pretty good one for a drag queen to read to the kids," said Fatale.
Fatale has prior experience reading to children — she used to work at a daycare in Glace Bay, N.S. She said pride events in other cities have hosted storybook readings and that they have gone over well.
Fatale hopes the story reading will become an annual part of Halifax Pride.
With files from Weekend Mornings