For those of you enrolling your kids into New York City Schools, here’s a book they might bring home.
As reported by the New York Post, the district is stocking its libraries with What You Don’t Know: A Story of Liberated Childhood.
Written and illustrated by Brooklyn’s Anastasia Higginbotham, the work makes NYC’s fifth-grade reading list as part of its Mosaic curriculum set to debut next year.
The plot, per the Post:
The picture book centers on a black child who talks about fitting in at school and church and a friend “who’s queer like me.”
The boy, named Demetrius, is shown in a church where he says, “Churches can preach all they want about love — the only thing that I feel when I’m here is shame.”
The boy’s spirit meets Jesus – who is apparently a Democrat — and who tells him “everyone is invited to love and be loved.” The distressed looking boy points to an unnamed white man — a (Mitch) McConnell lookalike — and says, “Even — ?” Jesus replies “Yes.”
The congressional resemblance is no coincidence:
Higginbotham, in a reading of the book posted to YouTube, confirmed that the unnamed white man is, indeed, McConnell and they are at Catholic church.
“That’s Mitch McConnell. And the child wants to know if even Mitch McConnell is invited to love and be loved considering all the harm he is causing,” she said.
The Post offers a page from the book, whereupon the gay child asks Jesus, “Are you gonna punish the people of Earth who hate me and blame it on you?”
It appears one message of the book is social justice revolution.
From its text:
We will rewrite the rules we live by and love the world into balance.
The statement accompanies an image of the boy watching television with his parents. Their choice of programming, as revealed onscreen (and specified in the book): Democrat Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.
It’s a bit different than elementary education’s old messaging. So far as I understand, the following are a few points of conveyance:
- Religion is mean
- God’s Son encourages homosexuality
- Opposing belief = hate
- AOC should control your destiny
As for that last item, I deduce such since the congresswoman is a socialist, and socialism is a system wherein the politically powerful gain sole possession/control over all products and means of production. AOC condemns capitalism, which allows Americans to own their own businesses. She preaches a political ideology in which she and her peers claim by force what might otherwise be yours. And in that position of power, she’ll decide how much is doled to the denizens.
As for religion and Jesus, of course, everyone should determine their beliefs. In the past, however, public schools wouldn’t have shouldered such a burden on behalf of kids, their families, and their church.
All the above seems in sync with our new concept of education. The institution appears to have substantially abandoned academics in favor of Modern Mission #1: develop good citizens who subscribe to a monolithic worldview.
As for Anastasia, the Post notes she’s a veteran of children’s books with some cultural flair:
Higginbotham wrote another controversial book called Not My Idea, about a child who “connects to the opportunity and their responsibility to dismantle white supremacy.”
Here’s more on the Mosaic curriculum:
Students can learn about the Mosaic books on the DOE portion of the website TeachingBooks and can download them for free on the Sora app, to which all kids get logins.
Among other questionable titles was a book called The Bell Rang for kindergartners that discusses slavery, and I’m Not a Girl, about being transgender, which was on a first-grade reading list.
Another controversial book on the Mosaic list that has upset parents is Our Skin, which is geared toward those ages 2 to 5, and blames the idea of race and racism on white people. It is on the kindergarten reading list.
Nothing last forever, including national identity. Might America return to some of the things that once defined it?
If such a thing awaits, I’d say it won’t be arriving soon.
-ALEX
See more content from me:
Actor Files Discrimination Suit Against Talent Agency for Rejecting Him Because He’s White
Bold Stroke: Women’s Swimming Coaches Association Officially Advises a New League for Transgenders
Find all my RedState work here.
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