"Children’s literature: as didactic* as ever, only with Progressive goals"

*Didactic:  1. Intended to instruct. 2. Morally instructive. 3. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively.

Bookworm Room

Children’s literature once taught children to avoid danger and be good boys and girls; now it primes young people to accept a Progressive political agenda.

. . . "None of the books were my cup of tea because they were all “quality literature.” Or put another way, they were all the kind of books that would end up in Oprah’s Book Club. My rule of thumb is that I will never read an Oprah-recommended book. Her taste in books and mine are so diametrically opposed that it’s a given that, if she likes it, I’ll hate it.

"Oprah likes books that are artsy, meaningful, politically correct, and written in high-brow language. I like thrillers, murder mysteries, romances, and non-fiction. We do not intersect.

" . . .Fairy tales may not seem obviously didactic, but they are — or at least some are. Don’t talk to strangers says Little Red Riding Hood. Don’t sleep with “a prick” when you’re still young says Sleeping Beauty. Be a hard worker of good cheer says Cinderella. Don’t accept food from strangers says Snow White. Throughout the world, fairy tales urge girls to be meek and chaste while urging boys to be brave and adventurous. Those aren’t politically correct messages, but history is what it is." . . . 

"As you may have guessed, I didn’t particularly enjoy the evening. The virtue signalling was constant, the disdain for America and Americans manifest, and the attacks on Trump predictable, boring, and distasteful. But I did at least get to see the books that serve as warm-ups for a future in which these kids grow up and go to an American college or university. Once there, when their professors start revealing the full Leftist panoply that’s the core curriculum of every college course, they are teaching to children who have been made primed and ready by a lifetime of children’s literature churning out Progressive propaganda."