Live Not by Lies, A Library Edition- Part 1

How concerning ideas are quietly making their way into our kid’s books, and how we can work to tell the truth. This will be a two part series.

Have you signed our petition? If not, please do that now!

Also, all library petition locations for this week are cancelled. If you would like to see the books, please reach out, and one of us will meet with you. However, you can see some of the Brave Books read aloud in their entirety on their YouTube channel.

“Mr. Brown’s September Precept:  When Given the Choice Between Being Right and Being Kind, Choose Kind.”

Doesn’t that sound nice?  I read this aloud to my kids from the book, Wonder, by RJ Palacio, years ago.  I thought it was beautiful.  I had bought into the kindness campaign hook, line and sinker.  I taught it to my kids, and I lived by it, but is this biblical? 

Renee Gerard, an American Professor said that in the end of days, when the antichrist comes, he will be like a false christ. He will try to look more compassionate and more just than even Jesus. - Paraphrase taken from interview of Rod Dreher with Dr. Jordan Peterson

I realize now, as I look back, that I failed to compare this precept in the book, Wonder, with the Word of God, and if I had been more careful, I may have caught the deception.  I had bought into a lot of woke ideology as many of my friends.  Wasn’t Jesus kind?  Didn’t this all sound like Jesus?  Jesus was kind.  He also flipped tables in His father’s house.   Jesus was perfect in every way, and we can trust His teachings and His example, all of Him.

When 2020 came, I was forced to face where the woke ideology was leading me, and it wasn’t towards Jesus.  It was leading me away from Him, and I chose not to follow.  I had a firm foundation in the Lord, and I also had enough history lessons to see where this was going. 

Since then, I began critically thinking about the children’s books my children were picking up at our local libraries.  Many were obvious “no’s.”  It seemed that if the book was published after 2020, it was often a no.  It seemed that publishers didn’t want a book published unless there was some alternative lifestyle or woke idea presented. 

Much of the time it was very subtle, and that is what this substack post will be about, the subtle books.  These are the books that we probably wouldn’t challenge (to be moved out of the children’s section), but we wouldn’t bring them home either.  We must realize that this is the culture that we live in now.  This is why it’s so important to get Brave Books and Tuttle Twins books INTO the libraries.  We must be part of the culture, not outliers.  We must tell the truth. 

The Books

The first book I want to highlight is called, Jackie Ha-Ha by James Patterson. 

Whaaat?!  James Patterson?? 

The book is pretty good.  It’s entertaining and takes place in the 90s.  The narrator, Jackie, is a mom and professional comedian, who is thinking back on her adolescence when she struggled with stuttering.  Her parents are distracted; her mother is off fighting in the Operation Desert Shield, and her father is busy studying for a written test to get into the police academy.  You can find this book in chapter book and graphic novel form at our libraries. 

Jackie makes some very poor and dangerous choices, including climbing to the top of the ferris wheel like a monkey.  Someone sees her and the authorities show up thinking she is going to jump or slip and fall to her death.  Her father is furious of course and grounds her from the school play and a speech contest. 

Then Jackie gets to school, and her teacher tells her that the decision her dad made was simply unacceptable.   Her teacher encourages her to disobey her father and lie to him about it. Jackie will serve detention by continuing to rehearse for the school play and the speech contest. 

As usual there is truth and lies here.  There is always a golden nugget of truth, “Parents make mistakes,” in this case.  This is a truth that every child must accept as she moves through adolescence.  Sometimes the road to this understanding is smoother, often perhaps, when parents are repentant and own up to their mistakes as their children grow.  Sometimes the road is more rocky.  However, the Bible is clear, children are to obey their parents and honor their father and mother.  Ephesians 6

I have a picture book at home called, I said NO! and in it, there are “red flags” for unsafe adults.  One of those red flags is keeping secrets.  The teacher’s decision to encourage Jackie to deceive her father and continue rehearsals after school is a form of grooming.  Of course in this book, it turns out okay, but our kids read this and their defenses are taken down a little bit more making them vulnerable.  Parents are demoralized.  The message is clear.

Some people might say, “This isn’t a secret, it is a surprise.  Her father would always have found out at the end.”  Semantics.  Jackie was encouraged by a teacher to deceive her father.  She lied and disobeyed.   Then she got her sisters to go in on the lie and lying to her father was the virtuous decision.  This is way over the line for a teacher, and I don’t believe it would have even been placed in a book when I was in school.  This would have been considered completely inappropriate.

Another book is called Bodies are Cool. 

I really wanted to love this book.  One of the first things I noticed when I picked up this book was that one of the kids had a zipper scar.  This book attempts to normalize physical differences. Prosthetics for missing limbs, zipper scars, colonoscopy bags, hearing aids, bodies of all shapes and sizes.   It seems like a great way to have conversations with our kids about these differences, giving them the opportunity to ask questions. 

Then the book takes things a little further.  Many men wearing women’s clothing with the obvious bulge.  Often those wearing leotards or bathing suits don’t shave, and there is pubic hair shown around that space.  Scars from top surgery are also shown in several pictures.  The message is clear: These are also differences that we need to discuss with our kids.  See where this is going?

Another book is called Itty-Bitty Kitty Corn 

Here is the description on the inside

The Unicorn confesses to the Kitty that she is a Kitty Corn and puts on her kitty ears.  They become the best of friends because they actually understand each other.  Don’t be afraid to be who you are, even if it’s not who you were created to be.  (This is not presented as pretend play.)

Finally, we have the book, Red, A Crayon’s Story

Last is the book called Red, a Crayon’s story, it is unclear what the author meant by this book, but this book is recommended on most LGBTQ+ reading lists.  It is similar to Itty-Bitty Kitty Corn, very subtle.  A blue crayon has a red wrapper, and no matter how hard this crayon tries, he only draws blue. Everyone tries to get this crayon to make red, helping in different ways. Finally, through a friend he learns that he is blue, he accepts this, and he is finally happy.

(By the way, this book is in the elementary school libraries in Conroe ISD too.)

Grooming Parents

Many of us have been groomed by the culture not seeing the lies for too long because they appear, at least at first, to be Christ-like.  When we follow Jesus however, we can only follow this path for so long before there is a discomfort in our spirit.  Usually there is something we are faced with that makes us question the direction we have been going and causes us to go back to the Word of God and consider whether we might be believing lies.  It’s not just Christians, but friends who don’t follow Jesus are also realizing, things do not add up. In fact, a very interesting podcast, New Discourses, that tells the truth about today’s situation, is told by James Lindsey, an atheist.

In order to get to the kids, they must first groom the parents. They are doing it, in part, through our read-alouds.

Where do we go from here? 

1. We live a life of daily repentance.  I led my children down a path that looked like compassion but turned out to be lies.  I repented to them, explained where I believed I went wrong, and we look to the One who is Truth. 

2. We spend time in the Word of God and in prayer to the One who knows all and loves us.

3. We wake up and take responsibility for the raising of our children.  We take interest in their interests, the books they read, the media they take in, and we discuss.  We learn to say no when appropriate. 

4. We teach our children to tell the truth. We must be willing to have hard conversations. Gone are the days when we can avoid the birds and the bees and assume the school will do the job. We have to have all the conversations with our kids. They are going to face it all one day, even if they are homeschooled.

Unfortunately, we are not going to be able to get all the books we are uncomfortable with out of our libraries. We have to accept where our culture is. Many of our neighbors do not follow Jesus or have conservative values and some may be demanding these very books for their children. One of the best things we can do for our community, is demand virtuous books to also be placed in our libraries. This is how we tell the truth.

We believe there is a bill that could potentially prevent books like, It’s Perfectly Normal, from ending up in our children’s section (thankfully it was moved to the Young Adult/Adult Non-Fiction Section), and that bill is TXHB 111 authored by Congressman Steve Toth.  Please look into it and consider calling your congressman and asking him or her to support this bill. 

Recommended Resources:

Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier - This is a must read book, especially for parents of daughters. This is not a Christian book, but we have not found a book that is so well researched. Ms. Shrier is a progressive journalist, and her book is a good gift for your progressive friend who is worried about his daughter as well.

New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay. He explains in depth what is going on in our society and systems.

(Live Not By Lies was an essay written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on the day of his exhile from Soviet Russia, which will be discussed further in Part 2 of this series.)

Live Not By Lies, A Manual for Christian Dissidents, by Rod Dreher – also discussed further in part 2