We have previously noted how the Central Bucks School District approved what The Philadelphia Inquirer called a “contentious” policy of not purchasing books with “sexualized content”. But the Inquirer’s Assistant Opinion Editor, Alison McCook, says that she wants her daughter to be able to read those books; does the Inky not pay her enough to buy them herself?

Why I want my kid to read banned books

Every school district — including Central Bucks — has LGBTQ students. Hiding books with positive LGBTQ messages won’t stop them from being gay, it will just stop them from feeling OK about it.

by Alison McCook | Monday, August 1, 2022

A few months ago, a long-awaited moment in my life arrived: My 8-year-old grudgingly let me read to her from my favorite childhood book, Harriet the Spy. As I opened my original copy, now faded, yellowed, and torn, and started reading about this judgy tomboy who is determined to be a writer, I had excited butterflies in my belly. But they stopped a few pages in, when Harriet’s nanny, Ole Golly, introduces Harriet to Ole Golly’s mother, who is obese. For several pages, Harriet keeps calling back to Mrs. Golly’s physique, describing her as a “mountain,” bursting out of her clothes, with “ham hands.” She has some sort of mental disability, perhaps dementia. “This fat lady wasn’t very bright,” Harriet thinks.

When I finished the chapter, I closed the book and reminded my daughter about how people come in all sizes and that it’s not nice to make a big deal out of the way someone looks. And I talked about her grandfather, my dad, who had dementia for her entire life — he had a problem with his brain, I said, which wasn’t his fault.

We have these conversations about older books a lot. The girl in The Secret Garden was born in India and is downright cruel to the local people who work for her family, calling them “pigs.” Stuart Little is kind of a sexist jerk. The Baby-sitters Club series has modern moments, but the books shouldn’t always call Claudia a “terrible student” when she struggles with math and reading, but clearly seems destined for a brilliant career in art or fashion. And as the only Asian character, she is consistently described in an exotic way, with “beautiful dark almond-shaped eyes” and “jet black hair.”

I didn’t ban any of these books; they’re still sitting on my kid’s bookshelf. But I would rather she read them with me so that we can talk about the many harsh asides they contain.

Perhaps Mrs McCook doesn’t realize it yet, but what she has just described is homeschooling her daughter, at least in part — and quite possibly a far greater part than most parents do — concerning the lessons she wishes her daughter to learn.

Not all children’s books should take place in some politically correct utopia where difference is celebrated and everyone is gentle and kind. There’s a reason schools teach Lord of the Flies and The Merchant of Venice, even though cruelty runs rampant through both. It’s important for kids to learn that life isn’t a PC utopia, and develop tools to think about and deal with that.

One wonders: would Mrs McCook approve of Tom Sawyer and, Heaven forfend! it uses that bad, bad word, Huckleberry Finn?

That said, I also believe it makes sense to revisit some of the books we consider classics and ask ourselves if the moments they depict are truly teachable, or just plain cruel. If the latter, perhaps they should be part of a classroom, not the library, so teachers can talk to kids about what they read and help them place it in a modern context.

Oh, so ‘Mark Twain’s’ classics should be revisited, though I’m having some trouble picturing today’s teachers having a classroom discussion of Samuel Clemens’ casual use of the “N” word. More, Mr Clemens writes the speech of black characters in a slave patois that modern readers would find offensive.

But we seem incapable of having rational conversations about books in school, mostly because of fear. On one side of the conversation, adults who want kids to have access to books with diverse authors and topics are afraid of being called “groomers” who seek to “turn” all kids gay or trans; on the other side, we have adults who are afraid of exposing kids to ugly parts of history or different kinds of people in a compassionate way. But these conversations are important, especially so since Central Bucks adopted a new ban on books with “sexualized content,” and Pennsylvania has the second-highest number of book bans of any state (after Texas).

So let me start. I believe we should revisit some older books that may make some kids feel hurt or unwelcome in the world. (That’s revisit, not ban.) But the books I suggest we revisit are not the books that will likely be banned by Central Bucks and other school districts across the state, which are targeting books that include LGBTQ characters, or address race or racism. I want my daughter to read the often-banned books The Bluest Eye and Gender Queer: A Memoir, even if she isn’t LGBTQ herself — I want to open her mind and heart to people who are different from her.

Here Mrs McCook shows us her agenda. With this paragraph, and with her entire column Why I take my kid to Philly Pride, the author tells us that she wants to normalize homosexuality and ‘transgenderism,’ to teach her daughter to accept those things as not being marginal, but something that ought to simply be expected. And that is precisely why some conservatives have called these things “grooming.” Some of us do not believe that those things are normal or acceptable, and that teaching that they are has harmed society. Given that the City of Brotherly Love has been setting new homicide records, but seems to see Monkeypox as a greater problem and the left want to change the name so it won’t hurt people’s feelings pretty much reinforced the idea that #woke^[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading politics is the real problem.

It is with some amusement that I also note that she wants to get rid of Mothers’ Day, which I read completely, just to see if she was writing with tongue firmly planted in her cheek:

You know who else probably hates this holiday? The roughly 20% of adult women who never have children. Some childless women likely tried to have children and couldn’t; think how sad the day is for them, as storekeepers and strangers tell them, unbidden, “Happy Mother’s Day.” Think about the women whose children have died, or have experienced miscarriage (roughly 20% of all pregnancies), or gave up a baby for adoption.

Then there are people who have mothers but don’t get along, and are happier when they don’t spend time together. A 2015 study found that more than 1 in 10 mothers are estranged from at least one of their adult children. What a painful reminder this day is for them.

So let’s cancel Mother’s Day.

In other words, Mrs McCook would cancel Mothers’ Day because it might hurt the feelings of those adult women who, for whatever reasons, might not be, nor ever be birthing people mothers. Interestingly enough, she also argued for the reimposed indoor mask mandates that the city quickly canceled when public resistance mounted.

One of my favorite days of the year is Philly Pride, and I take my kid whenever I can. This year, the kids’ area included a book section with author signings, and she begged me to buy her a book called When Aidan Became a Brother, about a trans boy, and how he and his family learn from his experience when welcoming a new sibling. “You taught us how important it is to love someone for exactly who they are,” Aidan’s mother tells him.

My daughter loves this book, and so do I. It’s a beautiful story about family, acceptance, and a kid who is just trying to be himself. I hope that reading about Aidan helps give my daughter the courage to be herself, to know that she deserves to feel loved and accepted no matter what.

And I hope she always remembers the inscription the author Kyle Lukoff (who is also trans) included for her when we asked him to sign her copy. “Thank you for being part of this world,” he wrote.

Mrs McCook is absolutely free to teach her daughter anything she wants; that is her right, protected under the Constitution via the First Amendment.

But what she also wants is for the public schools to teach other people’s children that homosexuality, ‘transgenderism,’ abortion, and heck, probably all of the woke mindset are good things, never realizing — or, if realizing, being perfectly willing to subvert — that other people might not want their children taught that such things are good, noble or acceptable.

Mrs McCook is very able to buy the books she wants her daughter to read all and learn by herself; she has a decent job, and books are cheap. Other people have the right to buy their kids the books they want them to read, whether Huckleberry Finn, The Communist Manifesto, or even the dreaded Mein Kampf.^[2]I’ve read all three, which ought to tell you exactly nothing about my political philosophy. I will confess that Mein Kampf is a dreadfully dreary reading, at least in English, because, written … Continue reading

I wonder if Mrs McCook would consider Mein Kampf acceptable in the school library?