This is so wrong for so many reasons.
I have mixed feelings about that. It’s certainly no worse than indoctrinating children to believe in supernatural beings or such rot.
Certainly it is worse.
Belief in the Great Pumpkin made Linus brave and good: belief in other supernatural beings might also have positive effects.
Belief that the opposite party is monstrous can only prematurely narrow one’s vision, making the child fearful and vicious.
Conditioning children to blindly accept the existence of a supernatural overlord and teaching them that this overlord will cast them to an evil place where they will be tortured for eternity if they refuse to believe will narrow their vision and make them fearful too.
That’s true. But such needn’t be the character of religion. Needn’t be the character of political education either, but 2 of the 3 books listen aren’t about education but demonization.
That’s true. The Republican books are directly presenting Democrats, even specific people, as evil. The “Why Mommy Is A Democrat” book doesn’t really do that. Here’s a review from the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature:
[quote]Should you happen to be a Democrat, you’re going to like this book. I liked it a lot. Mommy is a tufted-ear squirrel who embodies and makes visual all the good things Democrats like to think they do, like playing by the rules, treating everyone fairly, and sharing their toys. The picture book starts out, “Some Mommies are called Democrats,” and follows a "Democrats do such-and-such. “just as Mommy does” pattern. Little lovable animals inhabit the very finely done colored-pencil illustrations, exemplifying abstract beliefs like tolerance and accessible health care. They are all smiles and benevolence, and Mommy beams upon them.
As a running contrast to the positive scenes in the foreground of the detailed 2-page drawings are background scenes juxtaposing the heartlessness of non-Mommylike people and the woe of the poor. The elite characters are never named “Republican” but they’re identifiable. Items like the newspaper the headline of which reads: “Tax Refund,” carried by the cigar-smoking escort of a snooty woman totting a poodle, are dead giveaways. So is the representative multicultural-looking down-and-out young man who is barred from an expensive school, sleeps under a tree in the park, or looks in trash cans for dinner. Every Democrats’ heartstrings will vibrate with joy as Zilbert picks all the acupuncture points for our pain and pleasure-like the reference to the 2000 election.
A very smart, enjoyable collaboration and highly recommended.
A. Allison [/quote]
It’s still partisan nonsense, but it’s not nearly as bad as the other two.
Those books are stupid, the people that wrote them are stupid, and the parents who buy them for their kids are stupid. Lots of great childrens’ literature exists. Why feed children crap instead? Reminds me of parents going through a bitter divorce, who force their kids to listen to constant diatrabes about how evil daddy is or what a bitch mommy is. The parents are screwed up and they take it out on their kids. Same here. Good parents would give their kids good books instead.