All aboard RuPaul’s Rainbow Book Bus

On Monday, RuPaul announced he’s partnered with a new online bookstore called Allstora, and they’ll be sending a colorful Rainbow Book Bus across the country to deliver banned books to anyone who wants them.

The Drag Race creator has joined Adam Powell, an actor and drag performer, and Eric Cervini, author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated history book The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America, in the new online effort.

Related:

Conservative pundit freaks out at RuPaul’s teddy bear: “They’re coming after the kids!”

The collectible toy was made for adult fans of RuPaul, but the right thinks the bear in a dress is “grooming your children.”

Ru’s partners are a longtime couple and started the company in their Los Angeles garage.

Stay connected to your community

Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our newsletter.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

“You cannot keep the imagination down,” RuPaul said of the thousands of books banned in schools and public libraries in the United States in recent years.

Allstora plans to hand out 10,000 volumes from the Rainbow Book Bus during its year-long ride from LA through the South to Baton Rouge, LA; Birmingham, AL; and Tallahassee, FL. Local LGBTQ+ organizations will join the tour along the way.

“I wasn’t very good in school,” Rupaul told The New York Times, “but I read books and I watched television, and those are the ways that I was able to find my way in this great big world.”

The drag impresario cited A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, Animal Farm by George Orwell and Curious George, the children’s classic by Margret and H.A. Rey, as influential books in his early years.

“These strange days” of book bans and culture wars will “fall to the wayside,” RuPaul predicted, as curiosity overcomes conservative zealotry.

About the Moms for Liberty and other groups stalking libraries in search of “prurient” and LGBTQ+ content in books, RuPaul said, “They have so much pain and it’s being projected outwardly.”

“I just hope that the child that lives inside of each and every one of them will revolt and have a voice and say: ‘I want to use all the colors in the crayon box. I will not be restricted.’”

“My heart goes out to them,” he added.

Allstora founder Cervini grew up in Central Texas and said he knew from experience the importance of a safe space for young people. He sees the Rainbow Book Bus, and more importantly the books inside, as just that.

“There is an organization, a community, a family for them,” he said. “And even if we’re not always there, books are always there. They’re always available. They’re always a safe place.”