Librarian claims there's no good children's books about Trump, but there are?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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A recent news article about an Iowa library that temporarily closed after staff resigned due to public complaints about their “liberal agenda” had me more confused than anything by the comments of one of the librarians who actually resigned.

Here are the key passages

“The people basically accused the library of having a liberal agenda,” he added.

However, former library director Janette McMahon defended the decision to display the books in its library collection in an interview with CNN, saying she never had an “agenda.”

“I don’t have an agenda when I purchase a collection. That is not my job. I know what my job is, and we have guidelines that we follow to do that. So, politics does not play a role in how I choose my collections,” McMahon said.

The content complaints followed complaints last year the library had a children’s book about Vice President Kamala Harris and one written by first lady Jill Biden, but no children’s books about former President Donald Trump, according to Kelly. It resulted in McMahon’s resignation, he said.

McMahon said she also heard complaints there were no books about former President Donald Trump in the display.

“These were children’s books, these were picture books, and I did my due diligence. Did I miss someone? Did someone write a nice book about the former president? The answer at that point was no. I don’t know if there’s something now, I don’t know,” McMahon told CNN.

So I actually looked it up on Amazon, and there are plenty of children’s books about Trump, published well before 2021 when McMahon resigned (and a bunch of anti-Trump parody books to be fair), some in fact published by legitimate publishers who seem like they would write a fairly typical childrens autobiography about Donald Trump. When I worked in a library in 2012 even before the election Mitt Romney had his own “unbiased” children’s books about him, as naturally big publishers would jump to sell books they think people would buy for their children about current events. To claim that nobody actually wrote a nice childrens book about President Trump (either nice as in well-written or nice as in unbiased) seems patently absurd and really makes it seem like maybe the resident were right that the library did have a weird liberal agenda if they did have a Kamala Harris book and a Jill Biden book, but no Donald Trump book.

If you’re going to claim “We didn’t want to put a book about Donald Trump in the display because we were focusing on the recent President and his family/administration” that’s fine but don’t go off and lie and suddenly claim “Well we didn’t buy any because they don’t exist”. Aren’t we supposed to be telling the truth and going by actual facts which is what I assume this librarian would agree with?

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I don’t find the claim absurd at all. I find it far more likely than the alternative.

Since you produce no evidence of your own and just assume the librarian is a liar with an agenda I don’t think there’s a whole lot to engage with here.

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What evidence? I provided plenty of examples of actual Trump based children’s books. What more do I need? Track the person down and start going through his quarterly book ordering lists?

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Give me the top three non-parody books on that list you provided.

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Just looking at the reviews and author backgrounds

Donald Trump (United States President Biographies) seems like the stock biography you’d usually see for very young readers. Short and straight to the point.

If you want something more in-depth, Journey to the Presidency: Biography of Donald Trump looks like it’s fairly more in-depth at 64 pages, AND it has both negative anti-Trump and Pro-Trump reviews so it can’t be that biased.

Mommy, Who is Donald J. Trump?: An Introduction to the 45th U.S. President also seems like a fairly unbiased childrens book looking at the other books the author has published.

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Now, looking at the right wing Trumpettes that were hounding those librarians, do you actually think that any of those books, the books that told the good and the bad, would have been found acceptable?
I know what those people want to see and I would guess that that librarian knows also.

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The problem is that any unbiased book will make Trump look bad, so any “good” book about Trump would be totally unacceptable by any librarian’s standards.

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Apparently, the library get a lot of books from collections.

Not to mention, libraries do not often just buy books from Amazon, they are offered deals on the books by publishers. It is quite possible that none of those included the books you list.

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From the original article: “The controversy started over complaints about books on display for children with information on the LGBTQ community, according to Jimmy Kelly, board chair of the Vinton Public Library.
“They would like balance that for every book that talks about LGBTQ issues, that there also be a book describing traditional gender expression,” Kelly told CNN Thursday.”
And: “McMahon said the library had a policy to allow residents to complain about any books in an effort to have the library remove them. She says no formal objections were ever made. Instead, she says customers checked out five children’s books, including “Joey: The Story of Joe Biden,” and did not return them.”

And it is the librarian the OP finds fault with?

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There’s more to consider than just whether there are children’s books about Donald Trump. Children’s librarians consider many factors in selecting the books they purchase. Is the book engaging? Are its vocabulary, syntax, etc. suitable for its target audience? How accurate is it? How comprehensive? How popular has it been at other children’s libraries? (This is determined by librarian conferences, juvenile lit conferences, and publications, and by their own expertise.) What do reviews by experts in children’s literature say? Just because a book is in print doesn’t make it a good selection for libraries.

I looked at the books you linked to. The first has a total of three written reviews by customers. One is positive, one says shipping was fast, and the third said the author’s summary should be longer so he knows whether it was written by a lib. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. And as I said, a librarian doesn’t and shouldn’t select a book solely based on Amazon reviews.

Journey to the Presidency:

What?? How do negative reviews mean a book is less biased? In fact, of the mere 6 written reviews on Amazon, one says, “This book is very biased,” and another calls it a “Great book to brainwash kids with!”

Here’s the publisher’s blurb on Amazon. Note the numerous grammatical and punctuation errors and just plain bad writing:

Reading books are important, they educate, inform and entertain us every day but biographies and autobiographies are the most important source of inspiration when reading. Dissected Lives publishes biographies and autobiographies of people who through our history have inspired others by using their own experiences as a guiding light. Our books for adults help to motivate our readers, change their outlook on life and teaches us how to behave by learning from the past experiences of others. Biographies for our children and young adult readers not only excite and entertain but help younger readers learn about history and instills the best core values and encourages morally sound behavior. Grab a copy of a Dissected Lives Biography today!

Mommy, Who is Donald J. Trump? fares slightly better, but only slightly. Again, there are few written reviews. One positive review was from someone who claims to be a school librarian. One says it’s a good book because Trump is his favorite president. The author’s bio says she is “an avid political observer and mother of three inquisitive children, which makes her a connoisseur of children’s literature.” Uh, no it doesn’t.

Two of the books were published in 2016, before Trump was inaugurated, and the other was published in 2017. None of them could be comprehensive.

If I were a librarian, I’d want a good children’s book on Trump on the shelves. None of these are it. And I’ve known conservative librarians. Please don’t jump on the “They’re all liberals!” bandwagon.

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There’s also just the fact that history is still being written on the Trump presidency. We’re currently in the process of getting to the bottom of what happened in the last weeks of his presidency. Any book about him would be incomplete.

Plus there’s this implicit idea that you have that unbiased means that equal weight is given to the good and the bad. No, unbiased means reporting based on facts. If the facts are good and you balance that with bad, that’s bias. If the facts are bad and you balance that with good, that’s also bias.

It’s very likely a book on Trump isn’t going to have much positive to say, due simply to the facts about the man and his presidency. Even his supporters admit that he’s not a role model, saying that just shouldn’t be a requirement for the presidency.

And the role model aspect is the main reason those children’s books get written. Pure factual stuff is usually just a book on presidents in general, not focused on a particular one.

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It’s surprising that Whose Boat Is This Boat? doesn’t appear on that list. A major seller in the category.

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The President and the Big Boy Truck also seems to have been tragically omitted.

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What would a favorable children’s book of trump be like? You can imagine the illustrations that go with these.

“On Donny’s first day at his new job, he was delighted to find the kitchen would make him anything he wanted. So he ordered a hamburder with cofeve, and for dessert, TWO SCOOPS of ice cream!”

“Touring a factory, Donny got to sit in the driver’s seat of a new truck. It was a lot of fun, and he made engine noises, just like any kid would!”

“Donny promised that he would protect all the little children of America from the bad people coming across the border, so he alone built a giant wall, the best wall, that will stand a thousand years!”

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Would an accurate trump book be appropriate for children?

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As opposed to the current situation, where for every LGBTQ book, there are about 500 “traditional” ones?

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The hatred in all the other books just isn’t specific enough for them, I guess.

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I’d say it would grab their…attention.

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Well, it’s a kid’s book, which means golden showers and other prurient details would be left out. This National Geographic Kids article does a pretty good job of maintaining objectivity, but I’m sure Trump supporters would have conniption fits if it were made into a book and shelved in children’s libraries because they don’t want facts: they want glorification. So when it says, for instance,

In the weeks following the 2020 election, Trump refused to concede to Biden, declaring that he had won the election even though he and his legal team could not offer any evidence to back up his claims.

Trump supporters would say that was a LIE, and there was PLENTY of evidence. :roll_eyes: There’s a very nasty, very disturbing trend these days of bashing schools and libraries by accusing them of having liberal biases. It’s sickening, it’s bad for the country, and I wish it would stop.

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The claim wasn’t that children’s books about Trump didn’t exist.