The Radical Left Are Literarily Coming for Our Children

No, that headline is not a typo. A few weeks ago I came across a disturbing story in The Federalist, Kiri Jorgenson warned us that A Woke Children’s Literature Cabal Is Conditioning Your Kid To Be An Obedient Leftist. I’m going to heavily excerpt:

Eight years ago, I organized a statewide writer’s conference for children’s book authors. We brought in several high-powered industry members from major publishing houses. One editor’s words threw open the window to this shifting world.

She asked a writer at our conference, who was a leftist himself, about his story. He explained that in his manuscript, his main character learns that his hero is gay. The protagonist is troubled by this and works through his feelings to come to acceptance later in the book.

The respected editor stopped the writer mid-explanation and said, “No.” She explained that in kids’ books, we must present the ideal as if it already exists. There can be no “being troubled by” gayness. There can be no “coming to terms with” sexual identity. The characters in our stories must immediately accept with positive responses any representation of modern social constructs. This immediately laudatory reaction to woke ideology is now required in kidlit. If an author doesn’t portray it as such, his book will not be published.

This pronouncement by the editor shocked me and many other writers there. The line had now been drawn. As writers, our hope of publication rested on our willingness to positively portray woke ideology.

And the motivation?

This normalization leads to acceptance, which leads to embracing. By weaving these social agendas into the “normal” background of a story, a child who feels shocked at a scene or description immediately shifts to feeling shame for being shocked in the first place. Kids will seek to replace their shame with acceptance. This is the power of normalization.

Jorgensen goes on to state that when she knows a book is bad she doesn’t let her kid read it. I’m taking a different approach with Little Bob. Two years ago I made the Conservative Case for keeping your kid in public schools. On the personal level, I prefer to allow exposure to the Leftist pathogen and address each instance as they come up. And I got a good case of it when he & Sister Babe came home from the school book fair with two new books in tow. I decided to read both myself. One was pretty good, Spy School by Stuart Gibbs. The premise is that a grade school kid gets pulled into a spy school for kids. I had a few minor quibbles, as the Alpha badass is of course, a slightly older girl. But she is well written and not your typical Mary Sue. I also wasn’t crazy about how her dad was kind of an empty suit, but the story was good and little Bob liked it too. But this isn’t the one that prompted me to read both.

The other book was Attack of the Black Rectangles by Amy Sarig King. I was reading some of the praise for her previous books on the back cover. One started with “A smart, environmentally conscious underdog story…” – I saw enough and decided I needed to read this before Little Bob did. And it was as bad as I expected it to be. The book’s premise of fighting censorship wasn’t bad, but holy crud it did not even try to be subtle with its radical politics. It’s been a while, but here are the highlights I remember:

• It only took until Page 3 for the narrator to reveal that his family doesn’t go to church, say the Pledge of Allegiance too loudly, and they love junk food.
• The family consists of his mom and grandfather. His absentee dad is a complete head case, and it’s not specified if his parents are separated or divorced
• They declare war on Columbus Day, because of course they did. At the end of the book a passing comment notes that Thanksgiving is next. Which makes sense, as how can a Leftist even remotely understand a holiday centered around gratitude?

There’s a lot more, but you get the idea. I warned Little Bob that there was a lot of parts in the book that were pretty sus (as the kids like to say these days). He said that wasn’t going to stop him from reading it. I told him ,”Good. And after you do read it I’ll want to talk through the more sus parts with you.” It’s been a few months, and he still hasn’t read it. But he does like the Spy Camp series, so I’m OK with that.

I could go on a lot more, but during my “News Cleanse” month I’m trying to keep these posts short. I won’t be joining the conversation in the comments, but might if I decide to promote this post on my various social media feeds when I tune in again after Labor Day. But in the meantime, pay attention to what your kids consume. We can no longer trust libraries and “kids” shows to give our sons and daughters positive messages.

Brother Bob is no longer on Facebook (although you can see his archives there), and is back on Twitter again, but is ramping up on Minds and Gab, as well as Parler and GETTR, and has his biggest presence on MeWe.

Universities are absolutely out of control. They get gov-backed student loans and tax breaks, won't stop spending on unnecessary stadiums, "esports gaming lounges," luxury dorms, armies of administrators, monuments to waste that drive up costs & tuition. https://t.co/p2fXdzVZH1

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) August 10, 2023

Universities are absolutely out of control. They get gov-backed student loans and tax breaks, won’t stop spending on unnecessary stadiums, “esports gaming lounges,” luxury dorms, armies of administrators, monuments to waste that drive up costs & tuition. https://t.co/p2fXdzVZH1

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) August 10, 2023

Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog

Brother Bob

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brother-bobs-blog.blogspot.com/