Conservative children’s book publisher Heroes of Liberty launched a campaign Monday to warn parents about potential indoctrination of their children that could be going on without their knowledge, and in their own homes.
Scholastic Corporation, which is connected to nearly every public school in the country, pushes young children toward “woke” literature, sometimes featuring themes concerning sexuality, critical race theory, LGBTQ, general anti-Americanism, and other left-wing ideals, Heroes of Liberty warns.
Heroes of Liberty editor and board member Bethany Mandel put the threat in dire terms in a video for the organization: “Our children’s souls are in danger,” she said.
“What’s happening in education isn’t the biggest problem,” Mandel said. “The biggest problem is our culture, or, to be more precise, our children’s bookshelves.”
“You may think that your children are safe from woke indoctrination at home, but they’re almost certainly not. Scholastic, a billion-dollar children’s book juggernaut, turned into the most dangerous in youth culture,” the mother explained. “We call it the Woketopus.”
The “Woketopus,” the group says, is how Scholastic uses its reach to end up in families’ homes, usually without parental knowledge.
“A normal publisher of woke children’s books finds it difficult to get poisonous books into your home,” Mandel explained. “They need to convince you to buy them. The Woketopus doesn’t need parents. It found a way to smuggle propaganda into your home right behind your back, from its perch in our schools.”
“Teachers recommend woke books to America’s next generation, and parents are not there to screen them,” the organization said.
Speaking to The Daily Wire, Mandel said Scholastic, aside from being a children’s book publisher, gains access to kids in two big ways: book clubs and book fairs.
“Teachers act as distributors of books that are included in the book clubs,” she said. “For every purchase the teachers get bonus points, they can use to get more books and educational materials from Scholastic.”
“Book fairs take place on school property and involve a selection of books that has been chosen by Scholastic, and include Scholastic books, and books of publishers that have been chosen by Scholastic,” Mandel explained.
“Classroom teachers in more than 90% of public and private elementary schools and early childhood directors nationwide actively use Scholastic Book Clubs to give all their students direct access to the best children’s books at affordable prices,” Scholastic’s website boasts. “A treasured classroom program, Scholastic Book Clubs helps teachers by providing a curated selection of top-quality, age-appropriate children’s books at great values. Students and their families are empowered to choose the books they will love to read from monthly catalogs, and teachers are rewarded with free books and resources—all delivered directly to their classrooms.”
In a video for Heroes of Liberty, Mandel reads a shocking passage from a book Scholastic offers about transgenderism titled “George,” which targets children as young as eight years old.
“George stopped. It was such a short, little question, but she couldn’t make her mouth form the sounds. Mom, what if I’m a girl?” Mandel reads. “George had seen an interview on television a few months ago with a beautiful woman named Tina. She had golden brown skin, thick hair, and blonde highlights, and long sparkling fingernails. The interviewer said that Tina had been born a boy, then asked her whether she had had ‘the surgery.'”
“The woman replied that she was a transgender woman and that what she had between her legs was nobody’s business but her’s and her boyfriend’s,” Mandel continues to read from “George.” “So George knew it could be done: a boy could become a girl.”
“She had since read on the internet that you could take girl hormones that would change your body and you can get a bunch of different surgeries if you wanted them and had the money,” the kids’ book reads. “This was called transitioning. You could even start before you were 18 with pills.”
“Children are explorers in a new world,” Mandel tells parents. “When your kids read stories, they read them in an unfiltered way. It can damage them for life.”
Heroes of Liberty warns of other books from Scholastic that parents should know about, Fox Business reported: “‘Magical Boy’ (a pro-transgender book), ‘The Girl From the Sea’ by Molly Knox Ostertag (which features a lesbian relationship), ‘Rick’ by Alex Gino (a book about LGBTQ identities), and ‘This Book Is Anti-Racist’ by Tiffany Jewell (a book pushing race activism).”
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Parents can voice their concern about Scholastic by signing Heroes of Liberty’s “stop woke books” petition.
“Our children are being brainwashed by woke books in our own homes,” the petition page reads. “Once a wholesome book publisher, Scholastic has turned into the Woketopus, a billion-dollar woke corporation that uses our schools to manipulate children and sneak woke content into their bedtime reading.”
“Parents should be free to choose the books and values by which they want to raise their children,” the group emphasizes.
Scholastic denied having any woke agenda in a statement sent to Fox Business on Monday.
“The only agenda at Scholastic is to engage kids in a love of reading, in partnership with schools and families,” said Anne Sparkman, Scholastic’s vice president of corporate communications. “Throughout our more than 100 year history we’re proud to have brought generations books, magazines, and Scholastic book club and fair experiences as part of this mission.”
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