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This article is part of\u00a0<\/i>Upstream,<\/i><\/a>\u00a0The Daily Wire\u2019s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories \u2014 from our featured writers to you.<\/i><\/p>\n ***<\/i><\/p>\n For years, progressives have been shrieking about book bans, insisting conservatives want to pull classics from library shelves or burn fantasy novels for promoting witchcraft. It was always a straw man.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The real fight was never about classic literature; it was about books like \u201cGender Queer,\u201d which includes illustrations of oral sex and masturbation, and which <\/span>90% of voters<\/span><\/a> in a 2023 poll said was inappropriate for public school libraries. Or it was about \u201cThis Book Is Gay,\u201d which introduces dating apps to teenagers.<\/span><\/p>\n Those books are undeniably gross, but they do have exactly one redeeming quality: They are obvious. If your kid came home with a copy of \u201cGender Queer\u201d or \u201cThis Book Is Gay,\u201d it would immediately signal that it was time to attend a school board meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n But there\u2019s a much more dangerous form of young adult literature out there, and it\u2019s lurking behind an intentionally deceptive cover that\u2019s meant to trick parents into thinking everything is fine.<\/span><\/p>\n Rebecca Bendheim, the author of a YA book for teen readers, posted on social media about deliberately designing the cover art to <\/span>hide the book\u2019s theme<\/span><\/a> from parents while simultaneously advertising it to children.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen Penguin [Random House] asked me what I wanted for my cover, I said I wanted it to be gay enough for queer kids and teens to clock it, but for homophobic parents to just think it\u2019s a friendship story,\u201d the author and middle school teacher bragged on Instagram.<\/span><\/p>\n The book is called \u201cWhen You\u2019re Brave Enough\u201d and was released on Tuesday. According to the publisher, it is recommended for children ages 10\u201314.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSo I said, no holding hands, make my character look gay,\u201d Bendheim explained. She went on to point out subtle details she and the cover artist agreed on, including flowers growing between the pair to represent a crush that\u2019s \u201cgrowing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In a follow-up video, Bendheim showed her book cover to random people on the street to see if they could guess what it was about.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cShoutout to the people who answered and to librarians who help kids and teens find subtle queer books if they need them,\u201d she wrote in the caption. \u201cI\u2019m a firm believer that positive representation saves lives!! Would you be able to tell?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Bendheim\u2019s approach is insidious for what it hides. But other YA authors aren\u2019t bothering to hide anything at all.<\/span><\/p>\n A \u201cGood Morning America\u201d YA Book Club selection, \u201cSibylline,\u201d apparently includes graphic sex scenes depicting necrophilia, threesomes, and rape, with no warnings for unsuspecting parents.<\/span><\/p>\n The novel, written by Melissa de la Cruz, is advertised as \u201ca heart-stopping dark academia romantasy series\u201d in the YA genre. Typically, these books are aimed at middle and high school children, with characters around that same age range. \u201cSibylline\u201d was published on February 3.<\/span><\/p>\n When the main character Atticus dies, two other characters attempt to revive him by engaging in sexual acts with his apparently lifeless body. The scene \u2014 presented from the perspective of the dying character \u2014 depicts a graphic, non-consensual sexual encounter between all three characters. There are no content warnings anywhere on the book.<\/span><\/p>\n The book has been earning mostly one-star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, with readers noting the themes are wildly inappropriate for its target audience.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe audience is children and there are graphic descriptions of sexual acts between characters. Yes, the characters are older. No, they\u2019re not always consenting,\u201d one reviewer wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe main three characters participate in a threesome that is graphic, and this book is listed as appropriate for 9th through 12th graders, which is completely insane,\u201d another said. \u201cIf we think that it\u2019s appropriate to market sex \u2014 let alone a threesome \u2014 to 12-year-olds, there\u2019s a serious problem in this industry.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Child sexualization used to be something the culture at least pretended to oppose. The exploitative imagery around a teenage Britney Spears, the Calvin Klein ads featuring a 15-year-old Brooke Shields \u2014 society claimed to reckon with all of it. So why have people in the publishing industry decided those lessons don\u2019t apply to them?<\/span><\/p>\n The answer, it turns out, is that some of the people running that industry don\u2019t think there\u2019s a problem here.<\/span><\/p>\n Andrew Karre is an executive editor at Penguin Random House\u2019s Dutton Books for Young Readers, the same publishing house behind \u201cWhen You\u2019re Brave Enough.\u201d In an <\/span>interview<\/span><\/a> with PEN America published in November 2025, he was remarkably candid about his worldview.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOnce you approach it that way, what is a part of teenage experience?\u201d Karre said. \u201cSex. Whether actually having it or imagining having it, sex is inextricable from 13- to 19-year-olds.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He went further, saying that a YA publishing industry without sexual content was essentially unimaginable.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf, all of a sudden, it became impossible to publish YA novels with sex in them, I think it would effectively become impossible to publish YA novels as I understand them,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s hyperbolic at all.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Karre also argued that since teenagers will encounter sex anyway through what he called \u201cethically problematic\u201d avenues like pornography, books serve as a healthier medium to instruct them. Those who would prefer sexual content removed from YA books, in his view, are simply making an error.<\/span><\/p>\n He speaks for an industry that seems to indicate it knows better than parents what children should be reading.<\/span><\/p>\n This all amounts to a multifaceted attack on parental authority. On one side, authors and publishers are deliberately designing books to slip past parents\u2019 radars with cover art engineered to look innocent. On the other, you have publishers saturating the YA market with graphic sexual content that has no warnings, all in service of providing instruction to sex-curious teens.<\/span><\/p>\n\n