# Do you know any propaganda children's books? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 2, 2005, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090 "2005-05-02T18:20:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2020, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/62 "2020-03-26T21:13:15Z")
Not a book but the 90s children’s cartoon series “Captain Planet” is a show a lot of people don’t think is propaganda but it 100% is. The base concept is pretty standard for the time, the Spirit of the Earth assembles a team of teen superheroes to fight the “decay” harming the Earth, mainly pollution, overfishing, cutting down forests, corporate greed, the standard 90s kid lessons. But then the show had some really REALLY out there episodes, such as the episode where you find out overpopulation is a global threat and literally ends with the show telling the viewer their families should only have two children max, and the one that features the Israel/Palestine conflict and says that whole thing could simply be solved it both sides just talking it out. It was Ted Turner’s baby and you can tell since it really reflects the weird “90s Coastal Liberal” views he had. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2020, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/63 "2020-03-26T21:16:07Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > When I was a kid in the 1980s, I checked out a book from the public library. I’m sure I selected it purely because it had a picture of a garbage truck on the cover, and I liked trucks. It was a story about a garbage man who started trying to repair and reuse the things people left out on the curb. But ultimately he discovers that it isn’t worth the effort, all that stuff is worthless junk and it really should be taken to the landfill. And the lesson in the end was that garbage is actually good, because it can be used to fill in wetlands (they probably said “swamps” in the book) and then we can build houses on them! This sounds like a vanity project, written by someone in the industry. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2020, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/64 "2020-03-26T22:16:57Z")
> [@CateAyo](#): > > There was a story booklet called “Who Wants to be a Prairie Dog” that was published, in 1948, by the Department of the Interior to be used in teaching Dineh children on the reservations. The premise was that little Indian children who were lazy and preferred herding their family’s sheep to going to school, would drop down into prairie dog holes, and become prairie dogs. An interesting aside was that the children that were illustrated in the book wore short hair and “White” clothing, BUT when they turned into prairie dogs, they all wore Dineh clothing and acted “like Injuns”. [This one is available on-line](https://books.google.com/books?id=gXpd3c4WKd4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Who+Wants+to+be+a+Prairie+Dog%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjp_uWMlLnoAhVFHM0KHRA0B4wQ6AEwAHoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Who%20Wants%20to%20be%20a%20Prairie%20Dog%22&f=false). Hollywood actually attemped to make it into a movie, but it mutated into a game show about winning a million dollars. (This isn’t the worst tone shift in Hollywood proje ts.) ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/65 "2020-03-27T01:44:07Z")
Some Japanese kids textbooks present a un-nuanced view of what being Japanese means. “Japanese people eat rice and fish”. The unstated assumption there is that this is what distinguishes Japanese people from others. Stupid, but it goes unchallenged and thus remains in many heads into adulthood. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/66 "2020-03-27T02:09:19Z")
Childrens books in English have been very racist against african americans. I’ve seen them from the 20s and 30s. Speech, names, hairstyles: all degrading propaganda. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/67 "2020-03-27T15:07:54Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > Childrens books in English have been very racist against african americans. I’ve seen them from the 20s and 30s. Speech, names, hairstyles: all degrading propaganda. When I was a little kid in the 1960s, my grandmother was still reading **Epaminondus and His Auntie** (1907) to my siblings and me. She figured it was a classic she had read to her children in the 20s and 30s, and couldn’t see anything wrong with the title “pickaninny.” The stories are basically folklorist “Fool Tales,” in which a good-hearted child (or adult) takes instructions too literally and melts the butter, drags the daily loaf through the mud, kills the puppy, etc. More recently the Fool was whitened up and turned into **Amelia Bedilia.** **The Tale of Little Black Sambo** is too good a story to lose; children love to hear about a small boy outwitting the terrifying tigers, and especially out-eating his parents at pancake time. Luckily, a 1990s version called **Little Babaji** switched the background from Africa to India — where tigers live, anyhow — and offered non-racist illustrations of the Indian family. And some very funny tigers. It was one of my kids’ favorite bedtime books. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/68 "2020-03-27T15:13:34Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > **The Tale of Little Black Sambo** is too good a story to lose; children love to hear about a small boy outwitting the terrifying tigers, and especially out-eating his parents at pancake time. Luckily, a 1990s version called **Little Babaji** switched the background from Africa to India — where tigers live, anyhow — and offered non-racist illustrations of the Indian family. And some very funny tigers. It was one of my kids’ favorite bedtime books. Just to clarify, Sambo always took place in India (though sometimes the illustrations made that easy to misunderstand) - that’s why it has tigers and bazaars and ghee. The author lived in India for decades and was writing a story about the place she lived. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/69 "2020-03-27T15:26:25Z")
Speaking of “classics”, I was surprised at how pro-imperialist “Babar the Elephant” is. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/70 "2020-03-27T22:19:33Z")
I’ve seen vintage sheet music with titles like “If The Man In The Moon Was A Coon” and “Watermelon Pickaninnies”. Agatha Christie had a book called “Ten Little N-----ers”, later retitled to “Ten Little Indian”, and retitled again to “And Then There Were None.” ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/71 "2020-03-28T01:59:10Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I’ve seen vintage sheet music with titles like “If The Man In The Moon Was A Coon” and “Watermelon Pickaninnies”. Don’t forget Irving Berlin’s “Cohen Owes Me Ninety-Seven Dollars.” When I first met **Eve,** she was delighted that I knew that song, and we harmonized on it. Just a pair of _goyim_ mocking the Hebrew brethren. Although I later sang it to a work buddy, Eddie Rosenthal, and it tickled him pink. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/FJh1iBaeang/hqdefault.jpg "Janet Klein sings, "Cohen Owes Me Ninety-Seven Dollars" @ WCRF ~ 2007") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJh1iBaeang) ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/72 "2020-03-28T12:32:21Z")
As a counterpoint to the pro-racism books of our past, one day at the library I picked up a slew of books to read to Kid Cheesesteak who was about 4, one of them was [Ruth and the Green Book](https://www.amazon.com/Ruth-Green-Calvin-Alexander-Ramsey/dp/0761352554/ref=sr_1_33?dchild=1&keywords=the+green+book&qid=1585397952&sr=8-33) Somehow I had grown to adulthood without know what the [Green Book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book) was. So, I’m reading him a story of Ruth and her family’s road trip in their brand new car. She’s so excited at the beginning, and it unsurprisingly gets into grim territory as they travel into the Jim Crow south. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/73 "2020-03-28T17:05:38Z")
Several books have been written to indoctrinate children on the perils of being vaccinated and the joys of infectious disease, most famously [“Melanie’s Marvelous Measles”](https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/6/7992781/some-reviews-of-melanies-marevelous-measles) by Stephanie Messenger. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/74 "2020-03-28T17:41:06Z")
To be more precise about what nearwildheaven says in post #69, the Agatha Christie book that is being talked about was originally published in the U.K. under the title _Ten Little N--------_ and in the U.S. under the title _And Then There Were None_ (in 1939 in both countries). Even in 1939 American publishers knew that the British title was offensive. The title remained the same in the U.K. until 1977, after which it became _Ten Little Indians_. The last use in the English language of the offensive British title was in 1980, when an Australian edition was published under that title. The last use of _Ten Little Indians_ was in a British edition of 1985. After that it was only published in all English language editions as _And Then There Were None_. (Editions in other languages are a further problem.) So the problem was always that British publishers didn’t seem to understand the offensiveness of the word (and Agatha Christie was never very sensitive to racial matters). ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/75 "2020-03-28T19:56:12Z")
Hell, the English were still using the term on television Up through the 1970s. One episode of _Fawlty Towers_ had the Major explaining the difference between “wogs” and “n——-s.” Besides, “And Then There Were None” is a MUCH better title. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/76 "2020-03-28T20:11:22Z")
A good _counterexample_ that can be appreciated by parents of both right-wing and liberal backgrounds is James Clavell’s _The Children’s Story_. [full story online here (PDF)](https://www.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/UWEXLakes/Documents/programs/lakeleaders/crew7/greenlake_may_2008/the_childrens_story_becken_presentation.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/77 "2020-03-28T21:17:40Z")
I forgot to include this link to the Wikipedia entry: > **[And Then There Were None](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None)** > > And Then There Were None is a mystery novel by the English writer Agatha Christie, described by her as the most difficult of her books to write. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939, as Ten Little Niggers, after the children's counting rhyme and minstrel song, which serves as a major plot element. The US edition was released in January 1940 with the title And Then There Were None, taken from the last five words of the song. Succe The book is... ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/78 "2020-03-28T21:20:24Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > As a counterpoint to the pro-racism books of our past, one day at the library I picked up a slew of books to read to Kid Cheesesteak who was about 4, one of them was [Ruth and the Green Book](https://www.amazon.com/Ruth-Green-Calvin-Alexander-Ramsey/dp/0761352554/ref=sr_1_33?dchild=1&keywords=the+green+book&qid=1585397952&sr=8-33) > > Somehow I had grown to adulthood without know what the [Green Book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book) was. > > So, I’m reading him a story of Ruth and her family’s road trip in their brand new car. She’s so excited at the beginning, and it unsurprisingly gets into grim territory as they travel into the Jim Crow south. I am more than well aware of that Green Book, but it was, of course, not a propaganda book. The first thing that popped into my mind when I saw your post is Qaddafi’s political manifesto, which was absolutely forced upon children. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/79 "2020-03-28T21:47:15Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Several books have been written to indoctrinate children on the perils of being vaccinated and the joys of infectious disease, most famously [“Melanie’s Marvelous Measles”](https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/6/7992781/some-reviews-of-melanies-marevelous-measles) by Stephanie Messenger. So in this instance we _can_ blame the Messenger… ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/80 "2020-03-28T21:51:30Z")
Speaking of past dictators, in the old country I clearly do remember a grammar book from 1st or second grade from a prestigious Catholic school had, all of the sudden, a picture and sentences about how great Generalissimo Francisco Franco\* was and that we all should salute him. Peculiar because it was not in Spain but El Salvador, but not so strange when considering how conservative the elite Catholics were there. My mother added in my book (after I did not need to take it with me to 3rd grade): “God save us from Franco”. Had to wait about 4 years for that. - He is still dead. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090/81 "2020-03-28T22:46:38Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Several books have been written to indoctrinate children on the perils of being vaccinated and the joys of infectious disease, most famously [“Melanie’s Marvelous Measles”](https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/6/7992781/some-reviews-of-melanies-marevelous-measles) by Stephanie Messenger. And this one too. > **[Amazon.com: Sarah does not want to be vaccinated: 9783952453865: Bachmair,...](https://www.amazon.com/Sarah-does-not-want-vaccinated/dp/3952453862)** > > Amazon.com: Sarah does not want to be vaccinated: 9783952453865: Bachmair, Andreas, Maker, Madlen, Kimbell Brooke, Helen, Ryazanova, Alena: Books Sorry, Sarah, that’s not your decision. I do remember back in the days when tonsillectomy was often considered a rite of passage in childhood, and the books which made it sound like an adventure. I understand why the books were published; it was to make the children less afraid of what was going to happen to them. Now that the procedure is no longer routinely done, I’m seeing less of this, as a library volunteer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-any-propaganda-childrens-books/302090.md?page=5)