Author's Last Name Causes Her Children's Book To Be Put On A Watchlist

A children's picture book written by award-winning Canadian author Marie-Louise Gay has been added to a "watch list" by a library system in Alabama because of her last name.

 Read Me a Story, Stella was flagged for review by the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library system because it may be "sexually explicit."

However, there is nothing sexual about the book, which was published in 2013. It tells the story of Stella, who introduces her younger brother Sam to the pleasures of reading.

"Although it is obviously laughable that our picture book shows up on their list of censored books simply because the author's last name is Gay, the ridiculousness of that fact should not detract from the seriousness of the situation," Kirsten Brassard, Gay's publicist at Groundwood Books, said in a statement.

Local officials admitted the book was added to the roughly 200-book list by mistake. HCPL executive director Cindy Hewitt told AL.com that the book was flagged because of the keyword "gay." Hewitt said there are no plans to remove the book from the children's section.

"We wanted to be proactive and allow our library staff to look at our collection and make decisions about moving material to an older age group and not have someone from outside dictating that for us," Hewitt said.