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Stop trying to indoctrinate kids Axe-grinding political obsessives could kill off reading

Spiralling into political indoctrination? (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

Spiralling into political indoctrination? (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)


March 3, 2023   6 mins

Chaya Raichik, owner of the popular twitter account Libs of Tiktok, has announced she is publishing a children’s book. No More Secrets: The Candy Cavern tells, according to reports, “the story of Rose, a second-grade lamb whose new teacher is more bent on giving his pupils sweets than teaching them about counting and reading”. Rose faces a dilemma: should she do what Mr Wooly asks and keep the sweets a secret, or should she tell her parents? Rose plumps for the latter — luckily for her, because in a stunning plot twist, Mr Wooly the teacher turns out to be a wolf.

Perhaps you’ve already guessed it, readers, but it seems that No More Secrets is not just about lambs, wolves, and sweets. No, it’s also about teachers changing the pronouns and otherwise affirming the gender identities of school children behind parents’ backs. Self-described queer educators are a staple of Libs of TikTok, along with other narcissists filming themselves doing or saying nonsensical things in the name of social justice: transwomen complaining about their non-existent periods, white women castigating other white women for denying they’re racist, drag queens pole dancing for babies, and so on. Raichik offers these snippets up to her 1.9 million followers daily, for general Right-wing mockery and headshaking about moral decline.

Raichik’s enemies loathe her, presenting her as anti-LGBT and far-Right. Whether or not that’s true, based on the evidence available, we at least can say with confidence that she’s no Roald Dahl. Never mind the wise author’s rule of “show, don’t tell” — Raichik can’t even seem to manage “tell, don’t send readers into a coma”. An advertised book extract describes the moment where Rose the lamb breaks down and confides in her parents over a game of Scrabble:

“‘Oh Rose, that’s not good,’ said her father. ‘It’s important you let us know right away if anyone tells you to keep a secret from us.’ So Rose told her parents everything about the candy and Mr. Wooly. Rose’s father put his arm around her and encouraged her, letting her know that she had done the right thing by coming to him. Rose felt very thankful that she was honest and that her parents helped her with this tricky situation.”

Crushing as this style is, Raichik’s book fits squarely within an emerging genre in children’s publishing, whose function is to counter-indoctrinate children from the Right in the most bluntly obvious of ways. Classics of the genre already include Matt Walsh’s Johnny The Walrus, about a small boy who likes dressing up as a walrus, until his mother gets pressured by the “internet people” to take him to the doctor to have his hands and feet surgically turned into flippers. (I think we can all see where Matt is going with this.)

And then there’s The Parrots Go Bananas!, also from Raichik’s publisher, Brave Books — the tale of a band of parrots determined to ruin the reputation of two monkeys, Bongo and Asher. This was written by Sean Spicer, a former White House Press Secretary and Acting Communications Director for Donald Trump, in order to “reveal the danger of spreading lies”. Brave Books has a lot of other titles too: Little Lives Matter, for instance, about the sanctity of early life, and The Island of Free Ice-Cream, about capitalism versus communism. Indeed, for those with some time on their hands, I recommend the Brave Books website as the source of a fun new game — guess the culture war angle, based on book titles alone! Elephants Are Not Birds may be an easy one to begin with (gender again), but how about Paws Off My Cannon? Is this about the perils of excessive masturbation or the importance of the Second Amendment? (Answer: the latter).

The Right didn’t start this, of course. In 1920, Nikolai Bukharin wrote under Soviet communism that “the salvation of the young mind and the freeing of it from the noxious reactionary beliefs of their parents is one of the highest aims of the proletarian government”.  Back then, the Left-wing preference was for children’s stories about selfless workers versus the evil bourgeoisie. These days it’s all gay penguin dadsmermaids called Julian, and anti-racist babies. But whether from Right or Left, if you strongly disagree with a particular political ideology and yet see it writ large across a hundred texts aimed at children, it can feel imperative to fight back hard. Children are literally the future, after all. To some, it may seem obvious that, where one political side is desperately trying to indoctrinate the young, the other should adopt just as aggressive counter-measures in response. I’m not so sure, though.

For a start, it’s an open question whether any of these books work on kids as intended. Granted, if Facebook is anything to go by, the world is not short of children parroting favoured political attitudes to the delight of their parents — “so proud of this kiddo for coming out to the pro-life/anti-abortion [delete as appropriate] rally with me, and even making her own placard!” etc. — but that hardly establishes anything Freud hasn’t already explained. And we can’t tell for sure to what extent reading one particular book, or a few, actually shapes young minds, given how hard it is generally to associate any single childhood influence with moral development in a particular direction. The combined cultural forces coming at a child are immense and overwhelming, and rarely can be reduced to any single particularly influential factor.

What does seem true is that, in the short term at least, heavy-handed moralising tends to send some contrarian-minded children to the opposite pole out of sheer rebelliousness. Had my junior self been confronted by drippy Rose the lamb and her overbearingly sanctimonious parents, l feel I might well have been tempted to run straight into the arms of the nearest blue-haired, non-binary teaching assistant, begging to be rescued.

And there’s also the fact that, for each of these books to work as they are supposed to, the young reader should already have been exposed to the ideas of the ideological enemy. In reality, though, very few kids are likely to encounter both side of the aisle — and especially not given the sort of parent who would buy these books in the first place. Without insight into the other side, books such as Raichik’s and Walsh’s won’t make much sense to a young reader at all. Without knowing that Walsh’s story about the boy who dresses up as a walrus implicitly critiques the practice of medically transitioning youths, it reads like an inexplicably gruesome horror story – the mother wants to do what to her son? Surgically carve his hands into flippers? Equally, without prior exposure to the Right, children are not going to know there is any special ethical significance to the idea of gay penguin dads. They will probably just assume they are learning facts about the natural world.

But the biggest problem with any of these political forays into children’s publishing is that they are a performative war between two sets of adults that basically hate each other, with young minds as the battle terrain to be won or lost. Apart from anything else, this makes the books in question very boring. The best and most engaging children’s literature captures something about being a child and reflects it back in a way that they can understand. It can be anarchic, dream-like, funny, or sad, but it must talk first and most directly to the child, and only second to any adults eavesdropping. Books written in order to wage culture wars against other adults are unlikely to do this.

In the way that books such as Raichik’s use children’s literacy for adult ends, they are not so far away from a different form of literature-based performance, also happening this week: World Book Day. Once a year, modern parents are expected to dress their kid up as a favourite book character for school, and many take up the call very enthusiastically. For others, it’s an exercise in humiliation. My own days of fishing madly about in a meagre dressing-up box at 8.45am shouting expletives are over, but I remember the feeling. And there was also the embarrassing fact that my children did not really like reading books at all, and certainly not the sort of books that would send the “right” signals to my peers. The high point of my World Book Day career, if you can call it that, was when my 10-year-old son went in clutching the Top Gear Annual, dressed as his favourite fictional character, Jeremy Clarkson. (At the time, I just felt relieved because we already had the cords and a jumper.)

With occasions such as World Book Day, just as with the parental purchase of books like Raichik’s or their Left-wing equivalent, there is a strong sense of performance for other tribe members, and of children being used as somewhat bemused pawns in adult games. In a world where smartphones and X-Boxes loom distractingly on the horizon for most adolescents, where reading for pleasure is dying out among adults, and where English degrees are disappearing from universities, it probably feels important for the middle-classes to convince themselves that their children still read books and not just TikTok captions.

It’s hard to predict the future of World Book Day, and other such attempts to tell ourselves that valuable things from the past are still safe in our hands. Perhaps the culture wars will eventually result in Rose the conservative lamb squaring up to Julian the progressive mermaid in playgrounds across the nation. More probably though, the whole performance is already on its way out. Though it will cling on for a while as a form of historical re-enactment — kids in strange costumes gingerly holding up books in assembly, pretending they know what to do with them — eventually it will die, along with the desultory habits of reading that were used to rationalise its existence. And helping the whole process along will be books about non-binary giraffes and communist ice-cream sellers, written by axe-grinding political obsessives, killing off childish excitement at the written word one heavily pointed sentence at a time.


Kathleen Stock is an UnHerd columnist and a co-director of The Lesbian Project.
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Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
1 year ago

As always a well reasoned article from Kathleen but it does remind me that her background is at the woke end of the spectrum.

She’s absolutely right that crass political lecture books won’t move children, but try finding an Enid Blyton book in a library. Look at the recent furore over Roald. Dahl.

Talk to any school age child of your acquaintance and you won’t have to dig deep to find identity politics is being pushed at them relentlessly. Of course that matters “give me the boy and I’ll give you the man” and all that.

“Move along, nothing to see here,” just isn’t good enough.

Matt M
Matt M
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

“Give me a boy of seven and I’ll show you the man” suggests to me that the earliest years are the most important years.
So I read all the traditional nursery stories to my daughter when she was a toddler. Then the Famous Five and Roald Dahl books when she was a bit older. I bought the entire Ladybird collection of books about historical figures – Nelson, Florence Nightingale, David Livingstone, Oliver Cromwell etc – and we read those together. I also took her to church every Sunday and so she knows the major Bible stories. More recently we have watched David Lean’s Great Expectations and some of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes TV series together. Anything to expose her to more traditional facts and fiction before the woke modern world takes over.
She is off to secondary school in September and I hope this gives her at least some immunity to the revisionism and dogma she will undoubtedly encounter.
Maybe you can’t change the direction of the culture but parents can control what your kids see and read in their first few years.

Last edited 1 year ago by Matt M
Mark Duffett
Mark Duffett
1 year ago
Reply to  Matt M

Similarly with my son. Which may or may not have had anything to do with him turning out to be one of the contrarian-minded children who very much went to the opposite pole in response to the heavy-handed moralising, indeed propagandising and indoctrination, of his school.

Diane Merriam
Diane Merriam
1 year ago
Reply to  Matt M

We used crass bribery. Our son could stay up an extra hour as long as he was reading and left the content to him as long as it was an actual book and not a comic or picture book. Worked wonders and he’s passed it along to his son.

Mark Duffett
Mark Duffett
1 year ago
Reply to  Matt M

Similarly with my son. Which may or may not have had anything to do with him turning out to be one of the contrarian-minded children who very much went to the opposite pole in response to the heavy-handed moralising, indeed propagandising and indoctrination, of his school.

Diane Merriam
Diane Merriam
1 year ago
Reply to  Matt M

We used crass bribery. Our son could stay up an extra hour as long as he was reading and left the content to him as long as it was an actual book and not a comic or picture book. Worked wonders and he’s passed it along to his son.

Arkadian X
Arkadian X
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

In my library Enid Blyton is certainly present (or so she was last time I looked).
Talking about Dahl, it has to be said that Blyton was sanitized years ago, and without much fanfare, so much so I could not find her original book when I looked at the time (some 6-8 years ago).

Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
1 year ago
Reply to  Arkadian X

Blyton does seem to have been a particularly unpleasant individual and a cold parent. My objection to her books, though, is that they are appallingly badly written. One’s grandchildren should be steered towards Richmal Crompton and Anthony Buckeridge as soon as they are remotely old enough.

Matt M
Matt M
1 year ago

I can’t agree Dougie. I thought the Famous Five were excellently written adventures. But then I’m probably a philistine.
As for her being a bad person, it seems to me that few people who are single-minded enough to become the best in any field are generally pretty unpleasant people to live with.

Last edited 1 year ago by Matt M
Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
1 year ago
Reply to  Matt M

Likewise.

Famous Five, Secret Seven, even the Faraway Tree got me into reading at very young age. I wonder if Biggles is still in libraries.

Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
1 year ago
Reply to  Matt M

Likewise.

Famous Five, Secret Seven, even the Faraway Tree got me into reading at very young age. I wonder if Biggles is still in libraries.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Also G.A. Henty for some excellent ‘ripping yarns’.

Last edited 1 year ago by CHARLES STANHOPE
Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
1 year ago

G.A. Henty, perhaps.

Last edited 1 year ago by Chris Wheatley
CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

Yes, thanks. Slovenly editing, must do better!

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

Yes, thanks. Slovenly editing, must do better!

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
1 year ago

G.A. Henty, perhaps.

Last edited 1 year ago by Chris Wheatley
ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago

Even on the mid-60s I found Willism and the Outlaws somehow… unrelatable. William himself is essentially moral, but his prosperous pre-War middle class life of private education (never seen, but clearly inferred from his ever-present cap and rumpled Prep School uniform), maids and cooks and sizeable suburban villa home was nearer the 1920s than the 1960s.

I remember Buckeridge’s books – Jennings, wasn’t it? Schoolboys in boarding school with gabardine macs and school caps?

Here’s a vote for the modern figure of Bart Simpson. Bart is rude and under-educated, and often an opportunist but he CAN read and is seen doing so. He often shows signs of recognising his doltish father’s inadequacies. He is clearly fond of his parents and at times, defends his sister. He rarely tells lies, doesn’t steal and doesn’t smoke (or if he does, it doesn’t go well for him). He has a well-developed sense of right and wrong. He certainly has no time for drugs (and from the obvious stoner behaviour of characters like Otto the bus driver) he comes in contact with them.

Geraldine Kelley
Geraldine Kelley
1 year ago

William, Jennings and Derbyshire! I lived in those books as a primary-school child. I conducted conversations with these heroes of mine nightly, lying in bed after the Aged Parents had ordered lights out.Thank you for reminding me! I thank god my son was a small boy in the 70s and so read all the books I had treasured and the best of what was on offer at the time: all still on the shelves for grandchildren and small visitors.

Matt M
Matt M
1 year ago

I can’t agree Dougie. I thought the Famous Five were excellently written adventures. But then I’m probably a philistine.
As for her being a bad person, it seems to me that few people who are single-minded enough to become the best in any field are generally pretty unpleasant people to live with.

Last edited 1 year ago by Matt M
CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Also G.A. Henty for some excellent ‘ripping yarns’.

Last edited 1 year ago by CHARLES STANHOPE
ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago

Even on the mid-60s I found Willism and the Outlaws somehow… unrelatable. William himself is essentially moral, but his prosperous pre-War middle class life of private education (never seen, but clearly inferred from his ever-present cap and rumpled Prep School uniform), maids and cooks and sizeable suburban villa home was nearer the 1920s than the 1960s.

I remember Buckeridge’s books – Jennings, wasn’t it? Schoolboys in boarding school with gabardine macs and school caps?

Here’s a vote for the modern figure of Bart Simpson. Bart is rude and under-educated, and often an opportunist but he CAN read and is seen doing so. He often shows signs of recognising his doltish father’s inadequacies. He is clearly fond of his parents and at times, defends his sister. He rarely tells lies, doesn’t steal and doesn’t smoke (or if he does, it doesn’t go well for him). He has a well-developed sense of right and wrong. He certainly has no time for drugs (and from the obvious stoner behaviour of characters like Otto the bus driver) he comes in contact with them.

Geraldine Kelley
Geraldine Kelley
1 year ago

William, Jennings and Derbyshire! I lived in those books as a primary-school child. I conducted conversations with these heroes of mine nightly, lying in bed after the Aged Parents had ordered lights out.Thank you for reminding me! I thank god my son was a small boy in the 70s and so read all the books I had treasured and the best of what was on offer at the time: all still on the shelves for grandchildren and small visitors.

Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
1 year ago
Reply to  Arkadian X

Blyton does seem to have been a particularly unpleasant individual and a cold parent. My objection to her books, though, is that they are appallingly badly written. One’s grandchildren should be steered towards Richmal Crompton and Anthony Buckeridge as soon as they are remotely old enough.

Richard Pearse
Richard Pearse
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

I’m so glad you pointed out Kathleen’s obvious woke-bias in this article (moral equivalence of the woke indoctrination going full steam within teacher’s colleges and publishing, v. honest if non-professional attempts to offer a different perspective).

I generally adore Ms. Stock’s observations, but this article was in part, a bald attempt to say “nothing to see here” about the intentional program to radically redefine Western Culture by the Woker-than-thou crowd.

Matt M
Matt M
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

“Give me a boy of seven and I’ll show you the man” suggests to me that the earliest years are the most important years.
So I read all the traditional nursery stories to my daughter when she was a toddler. Then the Famous Five and Roald Dahl books when she was a bit older. I bought the entire Ladybird collection of books about historical figures – Nelson, Florence Nightingale, David Livingstone, Oliver Cromwell etc – and we read those together. I also took her to church every Sunday and so she knows the major Bible stories. More recently we have watched David Lean’s Great Expectations and some of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes TV series together. Anything to expose her to more traditional facts and fiction before the woke modern world takes over.
She is off to secondary school in September and I hope this gives her at least some immunity to the revisionism and dogma she will undoubtedly encounter.
Maybe you can’t change the direction of the culture but parents can control what your kids see and read in their first few years.

Last edited 1 year ago by Matt M
Arkadian X
Arkadian X
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

In my library Enid Blyton is certainly present (or so she was last time I looked).
Talking about Dahl, it has to be said that Blyton was sanitized years ago, and without much fanfare, so much so I could not find her original book when I looked at the time (some 6-8 years ago).

Richard Pearse
Richard Pearse
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

I’m so glad you pointed out Kathleen’s obvious woke-bias in this article (moral equivalence of the woke indoctrination going full steam within teacher’s colleges and publishing, v. honest if non-professional attempts to offer a different perspective).

I generally adore Ms. Stock’s observations, but this article was in part, a bald attempt to say “nothing to see here” about the intentional program to radically redefine Western Culture by the Woker-than-thou crowd.

Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
1 year ago

As always a well reasoned article from Kathleen but it does remind me that her background is at the woke end of the spectrum.

She’s absolutely right that crass political lecture books won’t move children, but try finding an Enid Blyton book in a library. Look at the recent furore over Roald. Dahl.

Talk to any school age child of your acquaintance and you won’t have to dig deep to find identity politics is being pushed at them relentlessly. Of course that matters “give me the boy and I’ll give you the man” and all that.

“Move along, nothing to see here,” just isn’t good enough.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago

Of one thing i’m absolutely convinced: Kathleen is right in her judgment that the types of childrens ‘literature’ she describes will simply bore children to perfectly natural distraction.
This is the idiocy of the Woke. They’re quite simply too thick – yes thick, to understand how their missives will be received by a young audience.
Am i being IQ-ist here? I am. This is why the Woke will not prevail.
Pathetically callow attempts to indoctrinate children will be forgotten by those children as quickly as i forgot what happened in school on 4 March 1963 (a Monday, 60 years ago.) I was more concerned with whether there’d be inedible lumps of potato in my school dinner. Turns out those inedible lumps, pushed to the side of the plate, turned into the brains of the Woke.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Flying Scotsman withdrawn from BR Service, Monday 14th January, 1963.

Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

I wish I was as optimistic. The old culture will be gone and what replaces it is just boring and tendentious, while – as Kathleen points out – the video games and TikTok will take their place. So we will have the year zero anyway.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Terrell

Yes, and we will have rendered an Idiocracy.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago
Reply to  Warren Trees

Hilarious movie, if too close to our reality.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago
Reply to  Warren Trees

Hilarious movie, if too close to our reality.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Terrell

Yes, and we will have rendered an Idiocracy.

Tony Price
Tony Price
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

I think that you missed the point of the article, which is referring mostly to anti-‘woke’ literature as boring and counter-productive!

Nona Yubiz
Nona Yubiz
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Price

Of course he missed the point of the article. Too busy pointing out the speck in woke culture’s eye to see the log in his own.

Nona Yubiz
Nona Yubiz
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Price

Of course he missed the point of the article. Too busy pointing out the speck in woke culture’s eye to see the log in his own.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Thick in a sense, yes. But do you think people of high intellect are immune to blinkered ideologies? Were Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud themselves not all three geniuses of a sort who had certain great insights (yes, even Marx) but also wrongheaded, oversold ideas that agitated countless lesser lights? The staying power of these three thinkers is also real and not an accident. Many brilliant people have oversized blind spots, or go insane, or more insane (in this group, Nietzsche).
Great wits are sure to madness near allied / And thin partitions do their bounds divide –Dryden
That said, as a general matter I agree that the Woke Mob is idiotic.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

I was, of course, generalising and intellect alone as you rightly point out doesn’t confer immunity from ideological straightjackets.
I do think there’s a difference in kind from an individual capable of originating systems of thought which then gain enough traction to be discussed decades/centuries later, from those discussed by Kathleen.
Tony Price makes the point in the comments above that Kathleen’s article mainly concerns those whose books are seeking to counter Woke literature. I should really have laid greater emphasis on both the Woke and the anti-Woke attempts at child indoctrination. The quality of both appear doomed for the dustbin.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Excellent. Another thoughtful response.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Excellent. Another thoughtful response.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

I was, of course, generalising and intellect alone as you rightly point out doesn’t confer immunity from ideological straightjackets.
I do think there’s a difference in kind from an individual capable of originating systems of thought which then gain enough traction to be discussed decades/centuries later, from those discussed by Kathleen.
Tony Price makes the point in the comments above that Kathleen’s article mainly concerns those whose books are seeking to counter Woke literature. I should really have laid greater emphasis on both the Woke and the anti-Woke attempts at child indoctrination. The quality of both appear doomed for the dustbin.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

I can say that reading Sewell’s “Black Beauty” as a child has stayed with me for life – now at 82. That “indoctrination” was important, I think in improving empathy. Sadly, in homes without books it hardly matters.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Flying Scotsman withdrawn from BR Service, Monday 14th January, 1963.

Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

I wish I was as optimistic. The old culture will be gone and what replaces it is just boring and tendentious, while – as Kathleen points out – the video games and TikTok will take their place. So we will have the year zero anyway.

Tony Price
Tony Price
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

I think that you missed the point of the article, which is referring mostly to anti-‘woke’ literature as boring and counter-productive!

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Thick in a sense, yes. But do you think people of high intellect are immune to blinkered ideologies? Were Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud themselves not all three geniuses of a sort who had certain great insights (yes, even Marx) but also wrongheaded, oversold ideas that agitated countless lesser lights? The staying power of these three thinkers is also real and not an accident. Many brilliant people have oversized blind spots, or go insane, or more insane (in this group, Nietzsche).
Great wits are sure to madness near allied / And thin partitions do their bounds divide –Dryden
That said, as a general matter I agree that the Woke Mob is idiotic.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

I can say that reading Sewell’s “Black Beauty” as a child has stayed with me for life – now at 82. That “indoctrination” was important, I think in improving empathy. Sadly, in homes without books it hardly matters.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago

Of one thing i’m absolutely convinced: Kathleen is right in her judgment that the types of childrens ‘literature’ she describes will simply bore children to perfectly natural distraction.
This is the idiocy of the Woke. They’re quite simply too thick – yes thick, to understand how their missives will be received by a young audience.
Am i being IQ-ist here? I am. This is why the Woke will not prevail.
Pathetically callow attempts to indoctrinate children will be forgotten by those children as quickly as i forgot what happened in school on 4 March 1963 (a Monday, 60 years ago.) I was more concerned with whether there’d be inedible lumps of potato in my school dinner. Turns out those inedible lumps, pushed to the side of the plate, turned into the brains of the Woke.

Elliott Bjorn
Elliott Bjorn
1 year ago

Oh, come on – children’s stories have always been cautionary tales – certainly the good ones. From Grimm to Narnia, Alan Garner and Tolkien… Just take the Victorian ones, Peter Rabbit, Huck Finn, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Pied Piper, Green Fairy Book, Little Women, Railway Children, Three Children and It, Brer Rabbit, Jungle Book, Red Fairy Book, Hansel and Gretel – I read hundreds of them – I loved Children’s Books as a child!

I like there was good and bad – there was temptation and misleading – coupled with resirting and honesty – that there was Right and Wrong. I liked that as a Child, it is safe, and understandable.

Although those were good books – Moral and instructive on Decency and life with some brilliant imagination and excellent writing..

Then children’s books became just bad – just Cr*p, and then they became morally bad and degenerate..

This reaction against the degeneracy; a return to decent morals and life lessons of a positive nature – I understand it – it is needed…Childhood now days is Adults grooming kids to accept degeneracy as normal – that seems to be what childhood is now days…sick stuff – .

Also – the story of the lamb being fattened up by the teacher who is a Wolf – I think it is 100% on the money as far as the Education Industry today. Disney its self is a shop of race hate and perversions now days – Good for some writers trying to inject some decency and protect innocence into childhood again. (the walrus one is pretty sick though, but I still give them credit for pointing out the REAL sickness of that kind of thing being pushed)

Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
1 year ago
Reply to  Elliott Bjorn

The old tales were of course cautionary ones, but well written and imaginative and embedded in a serious culture. I think most of us – at least those who read Unherd – have been influenced by what we read years ago, and are grateful for it.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Terrell

Ahhh, the blessings of multi-culturism.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Warren Trees

Or not as the case maybe.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Warren Trees

Or not as the case maybe.

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Terrell

Ahhh, the blessings of multi-culturism.

Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
1 year ago
Reply to  Elliott Bjorn

The old tales were of course cautionary ones, but well written and imaginative and embedded in a serious culture. I think most of us – at least those who read Unherd – have been influenced by what we read years ago, and are grateful for it.

Elliott Bjorn
Elliott Bjorn
1 year ago

Oh, come on – children’s stories have always been cautionary tales – certainly the good ones. From Grimm to Narnia, Alan Garner and Tolkien… Just take the Victorian ones, Peter Rabbit, Huck Finn, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Pied Piper, Green Fairy Book, Little Women, Railway Children, Three Children and It, Brer Rabbit, Jungle Book, Red Fairy Book, Hansel and Gretel – I read hundreds of them – I loved Children’s Books as a child!

I like there was good and bad – there was temptation and misleading – coupled with resirting and honesty – that there was Right and Wrong. I liked that as a Child, it is safe, and understandable.

Although those were good books – Moral and instructive on Decency and life with some brilliant imagination and excellent writing..

Then children’s books became just bad – just Cr*p, and then they became morally bad and degenerate..

This reaction against the degeneracy; a return to decent morals and life lessons of a positive nature – I understand it – it is needed…Childhood now days is Adults grooming kids to accept degeneracy as normal – that seems to be what childhood is now days…sick stuff – .

Also – the story of the lamb being fattened up by the teacher who is a Wolf – I think it is 100% on the money as far as the Education Industry today. Disney its self is a shop of race hate and perversions now days – Good for some writers trying to inject some decency and protect innocence into childhood again. (the walrus one is pretty sick though, but I still give them credit for pointing out the REAL sickness of that kind of thing being pushed)

Peter Quasi-Modo
Peter Quasi-Modo
1 year ago

No one book is likely to have a profound effect on large numbers of young minds. But woke-itis is now endemic in the publishing industry and becoming so in civic institutions such as education and heritage. The overall effect is a cultural mood music that is difficult for parents to oppose.

Last edited 1 year ago by Peter Quasi-Modo
Peter Quasi-Modo
Peter Quasi-Modo
1 year ago

No one book is likely to have a profound effect on large numbers of young minds. But woke-itis is now endemic in the publishing industry and becoming so in civic institutions such as education and heritage. The overall effect is a cultural mood music that is difficult for parents to oppose.

Last edited 1 year ago by Peter Quasi-Modo
Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
1 year ago

A question: In a world where…..
All TV channels are woke. Before every football match you have to watch the ridiculous footballers kneeling down with a sad expression, adverts have only mixed-race families, transsexuals are stars..
Every child has to have a laptop where they can watch endless videos and usually watch anything despite the concern of their parents.
Every child seems to have a smartphone and communicates with other children in Pidgin English.
Every child goes to school and mingles with hundreds of schoolmates who all try to be as trendy as possible.
Why is reading so important?

Last edited 1 year ago by Chris Wheatley
Lindsay S
Lindsay S
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

The problem nor answer is found in books, it’s found on TikTok.

Lindsay S
Lindsay S
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

The problem nor answer is found in books, it’s found on TikTok.

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
1 year ago

A question: In a world where…..
All TV channels are woke. Before every football match you have to watch the ridiculous footballers kneeling down with a sad expression, adverts have only mixed-race families, transsexuals are stars..
Every child has to have a laptop where they can watch endless videos and usually watch anything despite the concern of their parents.
Every child seems to have a smartphone and communicates with other children in Pidgin English.
Every child goes to school and mingles with hundreds of schoolmates who all try to be as trendy as possible.
Why is reading so important?

Last edited 1 year ago by Chris Wheatley
Arkadian X
Arkadian X
1 year ago

Honest question: are you sure these books, like Raichik’s, are not satirical? Who is the intended audience, clearly the adults. Isn’t she just mocking a certain subgenre in children’s literature?

Arkadian X
Arkadian X
1 year ago

Honest question: are you sure these books, like Raichik’s, are not satirical? Who is the intended audience, clearly the adults. Isn’t she just mocking a certain subgenre in children’s literature?

Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
1 year ago

Ordinarily would agree, but we are long past the time when forbearance and subtlety are of any use whatsoever. The foe is literally pouring its poison over our children’s heads and it’s time for full-bore fighting back.

Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
1 year ago

Ordinarily would agree, but we are long past the time when forbearance and subtlety are of any use whatsoever. The foe is literally pouring its poison over our children’s heads and it’s time for full-bore fighting back.

Lennon Ó Náraigh
Lennon Ó Náraigh
1 year ago

The smarter kids are going to see through this indoctrination. A volume of the “Tuttle Twins” slipped into our house once. My lot would not touch it. Equally, they are horrified at the bowdlerization of Roald Dahl – as are their classmates. I’m not too worried about the bright kids – they will be fine. But I do feel sorry for the rest of the kids, who will swallow all of the faddish ideological nonsense out there, hook, line, and sinker.

Last edited 1 year ago by Lennon Ó Náraigh
Lennon Ó Náraigh
Lennon Ó Náraigh
1 year ago

The smarter kids are going to see through this indoctrination. A volume of the “Tuttle Twins” slipped into our house once. My lot would not touch it. Equally, they are horrified at the bowdlerization of Roald Dahl – as are their classmates. I’m not too worried about the bright kids – they will be fine. But I do feel sorry for the rest of the kids, who will swallow all of the faddish ideological nonsense out there, hook, line, and sinker.

Last edited 1 year ago by Lennon Ó Náraigh
Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago

the world is not short of children parroting favoured political attitudes to the delight of their parents — “so proud of this kiddo for coming out to the pro-life/anti-abortion [delete as appropriate] rally with me, and even making her own placard!” etc
////
I think a more salient example would be Greta Thornberg.

Jacquie Watson
Jacquie Watson
1 year ago

I do love observation bias.

Jacquie Watson
Jacquie Watson
1 year ago

I do love observation bias.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago

the world is not short of children parroting favoured political attitudes to the delight of their parents — “so proud of this kiddo for coming out to the pro-life/anti-abortion [delete as appropriate] rally with me, and even making her own placard!” etc
////
I think a more salient example would be Greta Thornberg.

Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago

Let me get this straight. Liberals (the woke) control publishing houses, the arts, most media, the education system, Amazon, and nearly all independent bookstores.
And the problem we have is right-wing political propaganda making kids not want to read?
Kathleen is deep down the rabbit hole today.

Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago

Let me get this straight. Liberals (the woke) control publishing houses, the arts, most media, the education system, Amazon, and nearly all independent bookstores.
And the problem we have is right-wing political propaganda making kids not want to read?
Kathleen is deep down the rabbit hole today.

Richard Parker
Richard Parker
1 year ago

“Paws Off My Cannon? Is this about the perils of excessive masturbation or the importance of the Second Amendment? (Answer: the latter)” – led to a shout of laughter which gave me a second look at a mouthful of my breakfast. Worth reading for that alone, IMO.
The parents pushing their offspring into pet projects and causes of no natural interest to children is well satirised in Private Eye’s “From the message boards”, with periodic posts from Tim The House Husband, usually concerning his child Poppy (who mainly identifies as recreationally transgender). For those who’ve not come across it, Tim regularly beats himself up for being so unenlightened on current cultural obsessions, typically signing off his posts with “Am I wrong to be proud?”.
It raises two points for me: firstly, how much of the agenda was originally set by the children themselves, and secondly, why are the adults in the room so afraid and so ready to be instructed by the children?
Odd social inversions are afoot. I don’t see it ending well.

Richard Parker
Richard Parker
1 year ago

“Paws Off My Cannon? Is this about the perils of excessive masturbation or the importance of the Second Amendment? (Answer: the latter)” – led to a shout of laughter which gave me a second look at a mouthful of my breakfast. Worth reading for that alone, IMO.
The parents pushing their offspring into pet projects and causes of no natural interest to children is well satirised in Private Eye’s “From the message boards”, with periodic posts from Tim The House Husband, usually concerning his child Poppy (who mainly identifies as recreationally transgender). For those who’ve not come across it, Tim regularly beats himself up for being so unenlightened on current cultural obsessions, typically signing off his posts with “Am I wrong to be proud?”.
It raises two points for me: firstly, how much of the agenda was originally set by the children themselves, and secondly, why are the adults in the room so afraid and so ready to be instructed by the children?
Odd social inversions are afoot. I don’t see it ending well.

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago

How is being taught that your parents should be trusted as the primary arbiters and defenders of your welfare, qualify as an ideological challenge beyond the grasp of young minds?

The real point here is that things ARE. That children should grasp that there are dangers they cannot understand, but should be able to identify in the general sense.

Keep it up.

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago

How is being taught that your parents should be trusted as the primary arbiters and defenders of your welfare, qualify as an ideological challenge beyond the grasp of young minds?

The real point here is that things ARE. That children should grasp that there are dangers they cannot understand, but should be able to identify in the general sense.

Keep it up.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago

I love Stock’s oblique message of hope!
 “And helping the whole process along will be books about non-binary giraffes and communist ice-cream sellers, written by axe-grinding political obsessives, killing off childish excitement at the written word one heavily pointed sentence at a time”
Not necessarily. But I think laughing at some of this absurdity, rather than rising in somehow still-shocked outrage, has become a more tenable response of late. Nicely expressed in any case.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

Hope is the triumph of nostalgia over expectation.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago

You’ve modified Oscar Wilde: “Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience”.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago

You’ve modified Oscar Wilde: “Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience”.

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

How about wiling cart-horses cynically worked near to death and then sold for dog-meat? About pigs becoming indistinguishable from humans, and cynical (one might even say “eeyore-ish”) donkeys?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

Hope is the triumph of nostalgia over expectation.

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

How about wiling cart-horses cynically worked near to death and then sold for dog-meat? About pigs becoming indistinguishable from humans, and cynical (one might even say “eeyore-ish”) donkeys?

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
1 year ago

I love Stock’s oblique message of hope!
 “And helping the whole process along will be books about non-binary giraffes and communist ice-cream sellers, written by axe-grinding political obsessives, killing off childish excitement at the written word one heavily pointed sentence at a time”
Not necessarily. But I think laughing at some of this absurdity, rather than rising in somehow still-shocked outrage, has become a more tenable response of late. Nicely expressed in any case.

B. Mink
B. Mink
1 year ago

These books kill the imagination and must be kept from children. Read fables, fairy tales, legends, myths….

B. Mink
B. Mink
1 year ago

These books kill the imagination and must be kept from children. Read fables, fairy tales, legends, myths….

Alex Carnegie
Alex Carnegie
1 year ago

Good article and I could not agree more that the focus should be on any book that children actually want to read.
On indoctrination – and generalising wildly from my own experience – I suspect we all like to think we were independent minded even when young but, in reality, we underestimate the cumulative effect of being forced to read books with a particular angle.
It is true that I can remember thinking even as a nine year old (in 1968) that Our Island Story – and even more the map on the classroom wall with much of the world still coloured pink – was outdated BS. But more recently I have noticed uncomfortably that, when arguing with young woke relations, my passionate defence of free speech, debate, etc coincides almost exactly with the Cold War mentality one absorbed from reading George Orwell et al a few years later.
It makes arguing that the woke are brainwashed as teenagers tricky since it appears the same is often true of ourselves. As one recent graduate of the extremely woke Cambridge SPS course took great pleasure in pointing out to me.

Last edited 1 year ago by Alex Carnegie
Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
1 year ago
Reply to  Alex Carnegie

I still have a copy of Island Story and while of its time and with an anti-Catholic bias, it tells an optimistic story with enthusiasm and good pictures.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Terrell

Wasn’t it called OUR Island Story, or what that a different book?

Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
1 year ago

Yes, to be correct. Our Island Story. Our Empire Story has perhaps aged less well.

Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
1 year ago

Yes, to be correct. Our Island Story. Our Empire Story has perhaps aged less well.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Terrell

Wasn’t it called OUR Island Story, or what that a different book?

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago
Reply to  Alex Carnegie

I had also noticed the long-term effects of reading Orwell at secondary school age, a habit I have continued through life.

However, and its a VERY big BUT, Orwell was a very talented writer. He was also a very shrewd observer and a man of considerable personal courage; he had, after all fought in the Spanish Civil War and become deeply disillusioned by his experiences. Note also the writing of John Steinbeck in this regard – especially the cynicism and absolutism of the Communist Party union organisers in “In Dubious Battle”.

Orwell also managed the considerable feat of accurately describing much of what went on in the USSR (note the writings of Koestler, Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov in this respect) without actually seeing it first-hand.

Orwell’s description of “Oligarchical Collectivism” is remarkable for its prescience.

He isn’t a “Cold War” writer – he didn’t live to see it. The everlasting pseudo-war in “1984” has no nuclear dimension and is a “hot” (ie consisting of actual combat) War to the extent that it exists at all, which is never fully made clear. There can be no “Cuban missile crisis” in Orwell’s world view, no Klaus Fuchs, no Philby, Burgess and McLean – who, let’s remember were real people who sent real SOE operatives to their very real deaths for ideogical reasons.

Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
1 year ago
Reply to  Alex Carnegie

I still have a copy of Island Story and while of its time and with an anti-Catholic bias, it tells an optimistic story with enthusiasm and good pictures.

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago
Reply to  Alex Carnegie

I had also noticed the long-term effects of reading Orwell at secondary school age, a habit I have continued through life.

However, and its a VERY big BUT, Orwell was a very talented writer. He was also a very shrewd observer and a man of considerable personal courage; he had, after all fought in the Spanish Civil War and become deeply disillusioned by his experiences. Note also the writing of John Steinbeck in this regard – especially the cynicism and absolutism of the Communist Party union organisers in “In Dubious Battle”.

Orwell also managed the considerable feat of accurately describing much of what went on in the USSR (note the writings of Koestler, Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov in this respect) without actually seeing it first-hand.

Orwell’s description of “Oligarchical Collectivism” is remarkable for its prescience.

He isn’t a “Cold War” writer – he didn’t live to see it. The everlasting pseudo-war in “1984” has no nuclear dimension and is a “hot” (ie consisting of actual combat) War to the extent that it exists at all, which is never fully made clear. There can be no “Cuban missile crisis” in Orwell’s world view, no Klaus Fuchs, no Philby, Burgess and McLean – who, let’s remember were real people who sent real SOE operatives to their very real deaths for ideogical reasons.

Alex Carnegie
Alex Carnegie
1 year ago

Good article and I could not agree more that the focus should be on any book that children actually want to read.
On indoctrination – and generalising wildly from my own experience – I suspect we all like to think we were independent minded even when young but, in reality, we underestimate the cumulative effect of being forced to read books with a particular angle.
It is true that I can remember thinking even as a nine year old (in 1968) that Our Island Story – and even more the map on the classroom wall with much of the world still coloured pink – was outdated BS. But more recently I have noticed uncomfortably that, when arguing with young woke relations, my passionate defence of free speech, debate, etc coincides almost exactly with the Cold War mentality one absorbed from reading George Orwell et al a few years later.
It makes arguing that the woke are brainwashed as teenagers tricky since it appears the same is often true of ourselves. As one recent graduate of the extremely woke Cambridge SPS course took great pleasure in pointing out to me.

Last edited 1 year ago by Alex Carnegie