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As a reader, the mother of four children, and an author, I want my kids to love to read and to approach reading as joy and nourishment. The following five works of fiction do not encourage and inspire the love of reading in children. They’re terrible books for kids. If you make your children read these they will develop a loathing for reading that will last their whole lives and may possibly poison their very souls. Let’s see why.Note: Minor spoilers.5.) The Red Pony by John Steinbeck This is a set of four short stories set in the western United...

Arab textbooks are not the only ones erasing Israel from their maps. Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher of children’s books, has also eliminated the Jewish state in a book. “Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt,” part of the popular Geronimo Stilton children’s series translated from Italian and published by Scholastic in 2012, tells the story of a group of investigative journalists involved in a treasure hunt in Egypt. Writers Elhanan Miller Elhanan Miller Elhanan Miller is the Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel Follow or contact: Facebook Twitter Email RSS Newsroom Email Facebook Twitter Related Topics children...

PHILADELPHIA — Like many of his third-grade classmates, Mario Cortez-Pacheco likes reading the “Magic Tree House” series, about a brother and a sister who take adventurous trips back in time. He also loves the popular “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” graphic novels. But Mario, 8, has noticed something about these and many of the other books he encounters in his classroom at Bayard Taylor Elementary here: most of the main characters are white. “I see a lot of people that don’t have a lot of color,” he said.

Where the Wild Things Are was the perfect fairytale for the post-Sixties era of navel-gazing psychobabble Maurice Sendak, author of a children's book so wildly popular that there was even a copy of it in the largely bookless house I grew up in, has died. He will always be remembered for Where the Wild Things Are...it will be the simple story of a naughty boy called Max who gets sent to bed and encounters various wild things, told in just nine sentences, for which Sendak will win his place in literary history. It is appropriate that Where the Wild Things...

Maurice Sendak, the renowned children's book author who revolutionized the genre, has died. He was 83. Sendak died on Tuesday from complications caused by a recent stroke, his editor told the New York Times. He lived in Ridgefield, Conn., and was hospitalized in nearby Danbury. According to the Associated Press, Sendak had suffered the stroke on Friday. Sendak wrote and illustrated more than 50 children's books--including "Where the Wild Things Are," his most famous, published in 1963.

The mischievous traveling monkey that became a childhood favorite, Curious George, might never have become an American curiosity had it not been for the Nazi invasion of France. His creators escaped oppression, and he eventually became an icon. Now the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie is honoring thier achievement in a new exhibit that shares the story of the husband-and-wife creators of the “good little monkey,” reports the Sun-Times H.A. and Margret Reys were German Jews living in Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion. During their five-month escape in 1940, they fled on bicycles with...

Cameo appearance teaches kids dangers of rumors and gossip, indicts media While the former Governor and Vice Presidential candidate has achieved success with record book sales and support for a 2012 presidential election bid, she has also achieved something else few public figures ever have: heroine status in a children’s book. In a cameo appearance, “Governor Sarah,” a Palin lookalike character, attempts to help two boys with a struggling swingset business hang onto the American Dream despite high taxes, burdensome regulations and 246 czars in the recently released children’s book Help! Mom! Radicals Are Ruining My Country

When President Obama announced plans to give a speech to the nation’s schoolchildren in September, it set off a frenzy among conservative commentators who deemed it, in the words of Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer, an attempt to “indoctrinate America’s children to his socialist agenda.” Now, with the release of Katharine DeBrecht’s latest children’s book, “Help! Mom! Radicals are Ruining My Country!” — which lampoons senior Democratic members of Congress, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts — it is liberals’ turn to cry foul about the partisan poisoning of impressionable...

Like so many parents, I have agonized over the changing political climate, the degradation of morals, and the loss of liberty that the nation has been experiencing for quite some time. I’ve watched as our children have become more violent, while our educational standards plummet. And I can’t seem to shake the creepy echoing in my head of children singing Obama praises to the tunes of “Jesus Loves Me” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Look at some grade school literature like Heather Has Two Mommies, a story about Heather, a child of artificial insemination being raised by lesbian...

Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo, 41, is taking legal action claiming Hergé's controversial Tintin In The Congo is propaganda for colonialism and amounts to "racism and xenophobia". "Tintin's little (black) helper is seen as stupid and without qualities. It makes people think that blacks have not evolved," he said. Mr Mbutu Mondondo launched a case in Belgium two years ago for symbolic damages of one euro from Tintin's Belgian publishers Moulinsart, and demanded the book be withdrawn from the market.

puma08.comSept. 2, 2009Remember, the Dept. of Education expects your kids to read books on the life of Barack Obama before the monumental speech on September 8th, well here’s a look at two of the books that shall be used: The first book is aptly titled: Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope and here is the description, direct from the Publisher’s Website: Ever since Barack Obama was young, Hope has lived inside him. From the beaches of Hawaii to the streets of Chicago, from the jungles of Indonesia to the plains of Kenya, he has held on to Hope....

Brooklyn's chief librarian has yanked a nearly 80-year-old book from the shelves because it depicts Africans as monkeys. Tintin Au Congo is the only book in the city library system hidden from public view after a reader complained that it was "racially offensive." The popular Belgian children's work - due to be made into a movie by Steven Spielberg - is locked behind a series of hidden doors on the third floor of Brooklyn's central library. "'Tintin au Congo' was relocated," said director Richard Reyes-Gavilan. Library officials across the city said they've debated pulling about 25 books and DVDs from...

... A mountain of research points to a central lesson: Pry your kids away from the keyboard and the television this summer, and get them reading. Let me help by offering my list of the Best Children’s Books — Ever! So here they are, in ascending order of difficulty, and I can vouch that these are also great to read aloud. 1. “Charlotte’s Web.” The story of the spider who saves her friend, the pig, is the kindest representation of an arthropod in literary history. 2. The Hardy Boys series. Yes, I hear the snickers. But I devoured them myself...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The criticism of children's author Judy Blume has reached such a fever pitch so quickly after an expose' article from Lifenews.com that Planned Parenthood is begging for help. Blume wrote a mother's day fundraising letter for the abortion business that has pro-life advocates aghast.Blume plugged the pro-abortion group in an attempt to raise money near Mother's Day and her missive ironically suggested that abortion advocates celebrate mothers by donating to Planned Parenthood.LifeNews.com received an email blast this afternoon from Planned Parenthood to its supporters titled "Please help" and begging for assistance in responding to the...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Famous children's author Judy Blume is no stranger to controversy, but she's added to herself to a list of people who will be remember for something more devastating. Blume has lent her name the solicitation of donations for Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion business.In a new missive ironically celebrating mothers day, Blume suggests sending a donation to the pro-abortion group to honor mothers."Say thanks this Mother's Day with a gift that honors her courage by making a donation to Planned Parenthood in her name. I guarantee you that she'll be pleased. I know I would...

It's a phenomenon in American bookstores: Barack Obama appears as the hero on the cover of a growing number of works of children's literature from babies' picture books to longer stories for young adults.

President Obama, the merchandising phenomenon, has been a boon to sidewalk T-shirt vendors everywhere, the Washington Times reports. Less conspicuous, perhaps, is the equally robust success of the children's book industry in marketing Obama's hopeful aura and personal history to parents of young children. Are children's book publishers seeking to indoctrinate impressionable young readers -- or are they simply obeying the laws of supply and demand? When the country elects a new president, publishers characteristically issue a biography or two geared toward young readers. But in the case of Obama, publishers are tapping into unusual levels of excitement and curiosity....

As Julia L. Mickenberg and Philip Nel document in Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature (New York University, $32.95), Marxist principles have been dripping steadily into the minds of American youth for more than a century. This isn’t altogether surprising. After all, most parents want their children to be far left in their early years — to share toys, to eschew the torture of siblings, to leave a clean environment behind them, to refrain from causing the extinction of the dog, to rise above coveting and hoarding, and to view the blandishments of corporate America through...

For most, they are innocent tales that define childhood. But some parents are ditching fairytales, believing they are politically incorrect or 'too dark' to read to children, a survey has found. One in four mothers has abandoned the likes of Cinderella and Rapunzel in favour of The Gruffalo or The Very Hungry Caterpillar, written in 1969 by Eric Carle. One in ten parents even said Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs should be re-titled - because 'the dwarf reference is not PC'. Rapunzel is considered 'too dark' and Cinderella outdated, because she is forced to do the housework. The poll...

Favourites such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella and Rapunzel are being dropped by some families who fear children are being emotionally damaged. A third of parents refused to read Little Red Riding Hood because she walks through woods alone and finds her grandmother eaten by a wolf. One in 10 said Snow White should be re-named because "the dwarf reference is not PC". Rapunzel was considered "too dark" and Cinderella has been dumped amid fears she is treated like a slave and forced to do all the housework.