Amid culture war, children’s joy and freedom to read must be protected
If activist groups from the religious right have their way, Scholastic Book Fairs may soon be replaced by a new Texas-based vendor called Skytree Book Fairs that distributes “proGod, pro-america” children’s books. “In the past year, Scholastic has come under fire from some religious conservatives after agreeing to keep books about Black civil rights icons and LGBTQ+ characters in its elementary school collection,” Brett Sholtis of LNP — Lancaster Online reported.
If you want to ban Scholastic Book Fairs from schools, why not also ban recess and classroom parties and everything else that adds joy to children’s school lives?
Attending a Scholastic Book Fair with some crumpled dollar bills and parental instructions not to spend the money on scented erasers and kitten posters has been a treasured rite of American childhood for decades. Generations of children learned to love reading while turning the pages of books they discovered among the diverse offerings at their school’s book fair.
Well, sorry, kids — you may have to bid farewell to “Pete the Cat” and “Junie B. Jones” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.”
Instead, meet a gorilla named “Bongo,” a character in the 2021 book “Paws Off My Cannon,” by former National Rifle Association spokesperson and conservative TV host Dana Loesch. Emphasizing the importance of the Second Amendment, this book will make perfect reading material for your child as he or she hides in a classroom closet during a lockdown drill.
Then there’s Lucas the lion cub, the main character in “The Test of Lionhood,” in which Lucas’ sister is poisoned and Lucas has to save the day. The book is meant to teach about the importance of masculinity — and, presumably, about the helplessness of girls. Its author, Kevin Sorbo, is an actor who claims he was canceled by Hollywood for his conservative Christian beliefs — which seems kind of whiny and weak from a guy who used to play Hercules.
And who needs “The Baby-sitters Club” when your child can read “The Night The Snow Monster Attacked,” a book purportedly about good leadership penned by former U.S. Army Gen. Mike Flynn. Flynn was such an excellent leader that he urged then-president Donald Trump to declare martial law and deploy the military so Trump could get a mulligan on the 2020
We’d like to think that replacing books that children actually want to read with books peddling right-wing propaganda will never happen. But never say never, especially when right-wing activists have been so effective in scaring parents about our changing world.
presidential election. Never mind the U.S. Constitution, kids — Flynn says that can be suspended to steal elections from their rightful winners because, leadership!
We’d like to think that replacing books that children actually want to read with books peddling right-wing propaganda will never happen. But never say never, especially when right-wing activists have been so effective in scaring parents about our changing world.
And, as Sholtis noted, while the rightwing extremist group Moms for Liberty largely failed in its mission to help hardright candidates get elected to school boards, they have become a vocal presence at meetings and are getting more organized than in the past.
The chair of the Lancaster County, Pa., chapter of Moms for Liberty recently shared a link to Skytree’s website on the chapter’s private Facebook group along with the caption “Bye Scholastic!”
“The trick is getting the school districts on board with switching from Scholastic” to Skytree, a member of another Moms for Liberty Facebook group offered.
Skytree takes its name from a book written by Kirk Cameron, who played a teenage character in the popular sitcom “Growing Pains” in the 1980s and early ’90s and now is a Christian evangelist. When he’s not voicing virulently ANTI-LGBTQ+ views, Cameron has been cheerleading Skytree on conservative media. Its benign name is belied by its agenda.
As Sholtis reported, a close look at SkyTree “reveals it is a distribution channel for Brave Books, a publishing house that has faced ridicule and criticism for its bench of authors almost entirely composed of prominent conservative media figures.”
On its website, Brave Books contends that “Cultural forces are hard at work attempting to steal the hearts and minds of your most prized possession, your children. This enemy would love nothing more than to leave your family weak, your children confused, and their value system destroyed.”
We found these assertions mystifying. Who is the enemy trying to weaken families, confuse children and destroy family values? Scholastic stalwarts like Clifford the Big Red Dog? (He’s red, the color of the Communist Party of China flag, after all.) Pinkalicious, the little girl who ate so many pink cupcakes that her hair and skin turned pink? Is Pinkalicious working with the singer Pink, the pop musician who recently gave away 2,000 challenged books to audience members at her concerts in Florida? Is there something nefarious about Peppa Pig or Pig the Pug or Fly Guy?
Please, parents, let your kids be kids. Let them discover the joys of reading without seeking to indoctrinate them. If you don’t want your kids to buy particular books at a school book fair, talk to them and suggest titles you’re comfortable with — the Scholastic website is very parent-friendly. You can plug in your child’s age and grade level to find appropriate books. But don’t try to keep books from other parents’ children. And remember: More often than not, a big red dog is just a big red dog.