RightBooks4Kids Weekly Roundup Vo.6
more divestment from the ALA, Billy bookcase reveal, and trans flags replace the stars and stripes.
If you look closely, you’ll notice there are BILLY bookcases hiding in plain sight EVERYwhere. Case in point, our “new” living room built-ins. We are delighted with how they turned out but also if we had thought about it for more than five seconds, we would have realized we could truly have the floor-to-ceiling shelves by simply stacking another layer. Yep. Realized that AFTER we were all done with construction. Oh well, we can always add on later. For now, I’ll bask in my new living room and perfectly stacked books.
This concludes my home renovations updates - you know you’ll miss them.
Let’s get to some book & education news:
ANOTHER county divests from the ALA
Midland County commissioners in Texas voted this week to separate themselves from the ALA, in just another example of states being fed up with the mission and direction of the association. Their reasoning seems pretty clear-cut and reasonable to me:
“Our oath of office and resulting duty to the Constitution forbids association with an organization led by a Marxist".” they state in their farewell letter to the ALA.
Personally, I’m enjoying these independent-thinking states and locales deciding that they don’t need the backing of a machine to keep their libraries well-circulated and open to the public. This is the way.
An article that’s spot on about “sensitivity readers”
We all know the snowflake brigade is trying to shield sensitive eyes from reading authors from pre-2023 (when we all became enlightened) and this article in the Spectator is a wonderful explainer about how the revisionists aren’t going to give up their day job easily.
“The question now is where this all ends. I don’t believe that the relatively mild changes to the Wodehouse and Christie canons will be sufficient for some, and it would not be too surprising were there to be another round of alterations in a decade or two, with less implicit apology and more assertion that contemporary readers should not want to read the old-fashioned, deeply problematic works of cis heterosexual white writers in their original, “unimproved” forms.”
Recommendation: Buy all the books you love and buy them before their re-written. You think I’m kidding but I’m not. Make your home your library.
American flags disappear, trans flags fly, and civics scores are down
As has become normal, classrooms in America are quietly (or sometimes loudly) replacing the American flag with the PRIDE or Trans flag. Just this week, Libs of TikTok shared a picture of yet another high school class that proudly states, “WE ARE ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY!” with not an American flag to be seen. I’ve opened my socials and saw (more than I’d like to) videos of teachers encouraging their students to pledge allegiance not to the stars and stripes, but to the tacky rainbow mash-up monstrosity that now encompasses 45 different sexual proclivities in something that would make Rainbow Brite cringe.
Is it any wonder that only 22% of 8th graders are proficient in civics? Can we be surprised that almost an entire generation has little to no understanding of our country’s story (our nation’s history scores are abysmal) but also is not being taught the fundamental value of being a good citizen, healthy dialogue with their fellow countrymen, and responsibility to their neighbor? When we tell children that their personal identity and feelings matter more than anything else and that our country is evil at its core, we should expect no loyalty or desire for those same children to grow in admiration and allegiance to the country that has given them the freedom to not care at all.
Some good news!
As announced yesterday, Bethany and I are linking arms with the amazing author Kate Albus to debut her second novel. Her first go was an absolute hit with parents everywhere and we anticipate this one to be just as wonderful. Buy a copy and join us. More details coming soon but plan on starting your family read-aloud the week of September 11th.
That’s it for this week, friends.
Stay in the fight!