Where many liberal books promote the soft politics of inclusiveness, and many conservative books promote generalized patriotism, Brave Books are thinly veiled political diatribes, cast with brightly-colored animal menageries and marketed to parents as an antidote to “wokeness.” “PREPARE YOUR KIDS TO FIGHT AGAINST LIES,” reads the company’s website. In this arms race for young minds, Brave Books stands out for its naked politics. And some are taking a page from the alternative-media playbook and launching competing publishing companies - others have names like Heroes of Liberty and Conservakids - railing against liberal indoctrination as they attempt indoctrination of their own. Conservatives have responded with a new wave of book banning, from efforts to strip books from libraries to laws that restrict the kinds of stories schools can share with children. The mainstream publishing industry, trying to make up for a decades-long lack of diversity in children’s books, has been putting out scores of new titles with main characters of color, LGBTQ themes, and sometimes, explicit lessons about racism. But it’s hard to imagine that person would be a child.īrave Books might represent the peak of the children’s book wars, a proxy fight over cultural values that are playing out over school library shelves and bedtime stories. Someone who spent the bulk of 2021 internalizing cable news might understand what these books are all about. There’s a sinister messenger named Keeper Komey, a set of unreliable heralds whose banners read “Post” and “NYT,” and multiple references to a “steel box” containing slime. Patel himself is the book’s protagonist, a wizard decked in blue-green robes named Kash the Distinguished Discoverer, who teams up with his loyal friend Duke Devin to defend King Donald against Hillary Queenton. How does one turn the Russiagate saga into a children’s book? Transpose it to a medieval kingdom called the Land of the Free, toss in multiple puns - the knights’ shields read “MKGA” - and cast the political players as heroes and villains. “Let’s put this amazing book in every school in America,” Trump posted on Truth Social when it came out. Its goal is something bigger: to become a literary hub for the wee and anti-woke, searing a conservative viewpoint - and, sometimes, conservative talking points - into the youngest minds.Īnd last spring, in its biggest splash so far, the company published former Donald Trump defense aide Kash Patel’s The Plot Against the King, a storybook about the Steele dossier. As a political allegory, the story leaves certain issues unaddressed: What happens if the hyenas get their paws on military-grade coconuts? Would background checks make it harder for hyenas to get cannons in the first place? But Brave Books, with its growing catalog of brightly-colored paperbacks, isn’t aiming for nuanced arguments. That’s the message, at least, in Paws Off My Cannon, a children’s book co-written by former National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch and published by a year-old Texas company called Brave Books. The best way to stop a bad cartoon animal with a gun is with a good cartoon animal with a gun. When the cannon-control advocates get pelted with coconuts in a hyena attack, Bongo pulls out his arsenal and shows them the error of their ways.

To make matters worse, Bongo wants to shoot the invaders with his own coconut cannon, but some of his peacenik animal neighbors want to outlaw all cannons, instead. First, a group of hyenas armed with coconut cannons is invading his village and snatching the residents’ cupcakes.

Land of the free home of the brave puns