Since its initial publication in 1970, millions of children have read In The Night Kitchen, the classic picture book by celebrated author Maurice Sendak. The book is about a young boy who has a surreal dream about baking a cake that needs to be finished by morning. It was named a
These people are sick. And what hypocrites. Mom's for Liberty cofounder and her husband are embroiled in a real sex scandal. And as for student reading skills, aren't these unbalanced moms diverting from the real issues like building young readers phonics skills and phonemic awareness? We as a nation should be focussing on improving early elementary teacher training in the science of reading, not focussing on unbalanced hysteria over illustrations in picture book classics that have been in school libraries for decades. Mom's for Liberty is a fraud and part of a bigger far-right agenda out to pressure, weaken and ultimately destroy our public schools with the goal of replacing them primarily with unaccountable fundamentalist Christian schools and for-profit academies, many online, owned by conservative interests.
Very well said! Nailed it! And isn't it an odd notion, that supposed " Christian" efforts to curb purported "pornography" in the schools, end in death threats to school officials, likely coming from their side of the room. The irony doesn't escape me, nor the hypocrisy.
They are sick—and yet, they are given positions of influence. What does that say for the system in which they operate? They should be scorned and laughed out the door . . . Instead, their BS is validated.
How puerile of Moms for Liberty. Their name is an oxymoron.
Why are they objecting to a depiction of male genitalia? Is it because they don’t want it properly identified when uncles, fathers and other male “friends” assault young girls?
I hate how they're manipulating language so that any group with something like "liberty" or "freedom" in its name is usually right-wing, and helps them portray the left as being against freedom, when they're the ones enthusiastically restricting everyone else's rights.
Time to get out those fig leaves! What kind of minds and lives do these people have? How unnatural and unwholesome living in their psyche's must be. We can imagine that everyone in their households are fully dressed, no sibling ever to see that a brother or sister has different genitalia, and maybe they all avoid bathing! Chasing after pornography wherever they can imagine it certainly exposes another part of our American history that still needs addressing--Puritanism.
Please continue to address what may seem like a silly issue, but these people want to impose their neurosis on all of us, and our freedoms are too precious to endanger.
Darlin' the Speaker of the US House one Mike Johnson, has a weird religious thoughts like this. He is third in line to the US Presidency. If that don't scare you, you are braver than I am. This whole extremist Moms for Liberty group boggles my mind, but they're here and just another front battling against the US Constitution and Democracy. Stand strong against them.
So I assume there is no education about classical art in this county either. No David, no Sistine Chapel, no Venus or heroic nudes, no Manet or Gauguin. What small boring lives these people lead! Obsessed with sex to the point that cartoon goblins must be clothed, they are constantly fetishizing things that the rest of us don’t even consider sexual much less pornographic.
How do they handle the primates at the zoo, with their human-like genitalia on display? Should we close down the zoo until they all get little uniforms? Or farm animals who actually do the deed at inopportune moments? Or people’s PDA when they are out and about? None of these situations are under their control, so how do they handle it?
Instead of just using these situations as opportunities to discuss the world with their kids, they are choosing to weaponize their own mental weaknesses and moral failings against every normal person in the county. They are sick, sexually obsessed perverts who are continually thinking about children and porn—and the authorities are allowing them to manipulate the entire school district.
The regular citizens need to band together and demand that the districts use a reasonable and sane interpretation of these stupid laws to allow these books to remain UNALTERED on the shelves. They have got to fight back against these lunatics before they start shutting down museums and trying to restrict adult access to “questionable” books.
They could put athletic cups on all of the male aminals and bikini bottoms on all the femail aminals and Jeezus will be pleased and in turn please US!!!
Margaret Atwood has noted that The Bible is loaded with a lot of what Moms For Liberty would call porn. Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale, is one of the most banned books. To which she wrote: “Go ahead, ban my book” with an explanation on how that would make it even more popular.
I knew Ms. Atwood talked about having an edition of The Handmaid’s Tale that was unburnable, but I have never seen that little movie. Very effective! Thanks for sharing!
Spot on Jan. The bible does indeed include rated X sections. I believe a school in Utah (of all places) agreed to ban the bible after this was pointed out. Haven’t heard a follow up, but it was placed on the ban list at that time. (In this past year)
OMG - all I can say is (being a retired school librarian) I would not want to be living the nightmare that exists in Florida! Unfortunately, it will not end there, but this mentality will spread to other states and become part of the legislative fabric if not stopped. As a young child, in a family of 7, living in a small house, it was not unheard of to see my brothers and realize that their anatomy was different from mine. Did I see my father's anatomy? No of course not. Did I see my brothers' when they reached puberty? No of course not. But c'mon! We're talking about small children. To call attention to these books and attempt to remove them or change their content is nothing less than shameful!
Thank you for being a school librarian! And unfortunately you're right that this type of thinking is spreading through state legislatures. It's not just libraries either. Republican led state legislatures are changing social studies curricula, science curricula and even mandating field trips. My daughter's 7th grade class had what appears to be a non-optional Junior Achievement field trip (I'm assuming if you don't sign the permission slip your child doesn't go but who's going to do that, when it's free?) It wasn't all terrible but my daughter described a mural on the wall of the model city reading something like "Cities are created by and of their businesses and the people who run those businesses". No mention of any other professions like idk maybe teachers? They seriously had a mini Ford line and suggested the Coal Industry as a future career. (Kentucky) WTAF
Coal is remembered fondly by many from the 1970s in the midst of roller coaster recession, unemployment & skyrocketing inflation & high interest rates from ‘65 to ‘82, coal not only kept Appalachian areas afloat, but in KY $$ gushed in coal counties.
Since then despair and broken promises. (It is the reason HRC’s unfortunate comment stung her so badly.)
I used to work for a record importer/exporter. While I was Receivables Mgr there, we got a letter from the president of the Catholic League who was in a snit about a record we were supposedly selling. He was fit to be tied and offended beyond belief by this record that we were selling and should have been ashamed of.
I'd never heard of it. No one else who worked there had either but once the word got out via the letter from the compaining party being publicized by said party, all 1,500 copies of "Get Off the Cross, We Need the Wood for the Fire" by Tarwater literally FLEW off the shelves!!!
This reminds me of the Republican outrage when Murphy Brown, a television character and not a real person, became a single mother on television. Dan Quayle, the United States Vice President at the time, criticized her character for "mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone".
So, who wants to take bets on Ms. Pippin's particular kink? Or is she so repressed she herself has never seen a penis or a naked male butt? Or perhaps little Mickey's little penis is the largest one she has ever seen? These people are ridiculous...and dangerous. And serial book banners like Pippin should have their complaints throw out or simply ignored, especially when she admits that she hasn't read the books.
Private colleges should make it clear that the high school diplomas from these Moms for Liberty run school districts are not valid for admission. Clearly the kids in these districts are being denied the opportunity for a decent education.
And don't forget...owning the libs! But this lib is never owned by these assholes. He finds them to be sad little people worthy of, at best pity, normally scorn, and is more than willing to humiliate them when exposing just how ridiculous they are.
Lord love a duck... Now they're defacing public property!! That's exactly what those books, purchased with school district funds, are - public property. That they feel so free to deface items purchased with EVERYONE'S tax dollars should enrage the non-MomsForStupidity parents in the district where this is occurring. Is there no end to this insanity?
I see a lawsuit in the works! Bring it on against the Moms for Liberty for violation of the First Amendment or defacement of taxpayer-purchased materials.
These people are absolutely ridiculous, and it's clear they have never seen or appreciated any classical art. The worst part of this is that my mom, a retired Pinellas County FL career teacher, says there is no way she would be a teacher today. This is a woman who, as a 55-year-old widow, went back to school to get her Master's degree in Special Education and finished out her career teaching special ed in an inner-city school. Imagine what young future teachers must be thinking.
Moms for Liberty my foot. There is no liberty in their intentions. I wonder how they teach their children about "the facts of life", or even if they do. Do they actually let their kids learn about sex "on the streets"? And then, shamefully, take their teenage daughters somewhere in secret to have the abortion they rail against in public? I know this happens because I've taken care of some of those unfortunate young ladies.
Those women are a disgrace to their own families. It's heartbreaking when you consider what can be gained by education. They should use these wonderful books to open up a dialogue between them and their own kids instead of taking that opportunity away from others. Not to mention a little thing like freedom of speech.
These "Moms" have stolen the word "liberty" from the rest of us. I am an actual mom (although not in Florida, and my kids are adults) and I want children and to have the freedom and liberty to read any book they want to, including classics by Maurice Sendak and Eric Carle. I don't want some right wing prude deciding which books shall have a public audience and which will not. More like "Moms for Lack of Liberty afforded to your children and mine." If they don't want their children to read "In the Night Kitchen" fine, they can restrict their child's access to it, or purchase their own copy and draw little underpants on the naked little boy.
These Moms for Liberty are repressed and messed up if they see nudity as “stimulating prurient interests”. We were born naked. What is more beautiful than a naked newborn child? It seems that museums with statues and paintings of naked people might be next. Where does this end?
Well, if the Libs are going to take down statues of confederate heroes, Cons should have the right to take down statues of naked people. Sarcasm alert activate.
They don’t need to do it themselves. They get lists of page numbers and those “key words”. Time saver that allows one or two people to wreak havoc on many libraries.
I can only shake my head so much before it falls off my shoulders.
There are many Republican policies that I can agree. But I can't vote for Republicans who back this malarky or think that allowing any nut job to sue institutions, government, individuals for anything they dislike is good policy. This is a form of tyranny by people who do not have anything better to do with their lives than make it difficult for others to live theirs.
They’ve built a network to activate for their own purposes. Rather scary. DeSantis was giving them government appointments. Others are also. Then comes $$ for ‘consulting’. Blech.
These people are sick. And what hypocrites. Mom's for Liberty cofounder and her husband are embroiled in a real sex scandal. And as for student reading skills, aren't these unbalanced moms diverting from the real issues like building young readers phonics skills and phonemic awareness? We as a nation should be focussing on improving early elementary teacher training in the science of reading, not focussing on unbalanced hysteria over illustrations in picture book classics that have been in school libraries for decades. Mom's for Liberty is a fraud and part of a bigger far-right agenda out to pressure, weaken and ultimately destroy our public schools with the goal of replacing them primarily with unaccountable fundamentalist Christian schools and for-profit academies, many online, owned by conservative interests.
Very well said! Nailed it! And isn't it an odd notion, that supposed " Christian" efforts to curb purported "pornography" in the schools, end in death threats to school officials, likely coming from their side of the room. The irony doesn't escape me, nor the hypocrisy.
Amen 💪🏼
They are sick—and yet, they are given positions of influence. What does that say for the system in which they operate? They should be scorned and laughed out the door . . . Instead, their BS is validated.
How puerile of Moms for Liberty. Their name is an oxymoron.
Why are they objecting to a depiction of male genitalia? Is it because they don’t want it properly identified when uncles, fathers and other male “friends” assault young girls?
Ignorance is not bliss.
Moms Against Liberty.
I hate how they're manipulating language so that any group with something like "liberty" or "freedom" in its name is usually right-wing, and helps them portray the left as being against freedom, when they're the ones enthusiastically restricting everyone else's rights.
Should be Puritans for Censorship!
If it is, the Moms of tyranny are Euphoric
On cloud Nine.
VALERIE MELUSKEY
Time to get out those fig leaves! What kind of minds and lives do these people have? How unnatural and unwholesome living in their psyche's must be. We can imagine that everyone in their households are fully dressed, no sibling ever to see that a brother or sister has different genitalia, and maybe they all avoid bathing! Chasing after pornography wherever they can imagine it certainly exposes another part of our American history that still needs addressing--Puritanism.
Please continue to address what may seem like a silly issue, but these people want to impose their neurosis on all of us, and our freedoms are too precious to endanger.
Darlin' the Speaker of the US House one Mike Johnson, has a weird religious thoughts like this. He is third in line to the US Presidency. If that don't scare you, you are braver than I am. This whole extremist Moms for Liberty group boggles my mind, but they're here and just another front battling against the US Constitution and Democracy. Stand strong against them.
They are the true sex obsessed fiends.
Yes, just like the Puritans were!
Remember former AG Ashcroft hid a statue of the Spirit of Justice from public view?
So I assume there is no education about classical art in this county either. No David, no Sistine Chapel, no Venus or heroic nudes, no Manet or Gauguin. What small boring lives these people lead! Obsessed with sex to the point that cartoon goblins must be clothed, they are constantly fetishizing things that the rest of us don’t even consider sexual much less pornographic.
How do they handle the primates at the zoo, with their human-like genitalia on display? Should we close down the zoo until they all get little uniforms? Or farm animals who actually do the deed at inopportune moments? Or people’s PDA when they are out and about? None of these situations are under their control, so how do they handle it?
Instead of just using these situations as opportunities to discuss the world with their kids, they are choosing to weaponize their own mental weaknesses and moral failings against every normal person in the county. They are sick, sexually obsessed perverts who are continually thinking about children and porn—and the authorities are allowing them to manipulate the entire school district.
The regular citizens need to band together and demand that the districts use a reasonable and sane interpretation of these stupid laws to allow these books to remain UNALTERED on the shelves. They have got to fight back against these lunatics before they start shutting down museums and trying to restrict adult access to “questionable” books.
Wholeheartedly agree!
They could put athletic cups on all of the male aminals and bikini bottoms on all the femail aminals and Jeezus will be pleased and in turn please US!!!
s/
😄👏🏻👏🏻
I guess pippin is also censoring the Bible with all its nudity and sexual content...
Margaret Atwood has noted that The Bible is loaded with a lot of what Moms For Liberty would call porn. Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale, is one of the most banned books. To which she wrote: “Go ahead, ban my book” with an explanation on how that would make it even more popular.
Forgive me that I have shared this before. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpsMsAMY4eM
I knew Ms. Atwood talked about having an edition of The Handmaid’s Tale that was unburnable, but I have never seen that little movie. Very effective! Thanks for sharing!
Spot on Jan. The bible does indeed include rated X sections. I believe a school in Utah (of all places) agreed to ban the bible after this was pointed out. Haven’t heard a follow up, but it was placed on the ban list at that time. (In this past year)
But of course they went er, "silent" on that one. Can't have no body makin fun of that Sweet Krispy Jezus!
Well they are going after the dictionary.
OMG - all I can say is (being a retired school librarian) I would not want to be living the nightmare that exists in Florida! Unfortunately, it will not end there, but this mentality will spread to other states and become part of the legislative fabric if not stopped. As a young child, in a family of 7, living in a small house, it was not unheard of to see my brothers and realize that their anatomy was different from mine. Did I see my father's anatomy? No of course not. Did I see my brothers' when they reached puberty? No of course not. But c'mon! We're talking about small children. To call attention to these books and attempt to remove them or change their content is nothing less than shameful!
Thank you for being a school librarian! And unfortunately you're right that this type of thinking is spreading through state legislatures. It's not just libraries either. Republican led state legislatures are changing social studies curricula, science curricula and even mandating field trips. My daughter's 7th grade class had what appears to be a non-optional Junior Achievement field trip (I'm assuming if you don't sign the permission slip your child doesn't go but who's going to do that, when it's free?) It wasn't all terrible but my daughter described a mural on the wall of the model city reading something like "Cities are created by and of their businesses and the people who run those businesses". No mention of any other professions like idk maybe teachers? They seriously had a mini Ford line and suggested the Coal Industry as a future career. (Kentucky) WTAF
I consider Jr Achievement a Chamber of Commerce indoctrination program. These are the “supporters” in KY/IN. https://kentuckiana.ja.org/donor/our-supporters. I don’t know what county this was. It reminds me of Univ of Kentucky which gets $$ from coal barons - alumni and others. https://www.uky.edu/prmarketing/charles-koch-foundation-gift
Coal is remembered fondly by many from the 1970s in the midst of roller coaster recession, unemployment & skyrocketing inflation & high interest rates from ‘65 to ‘82, coal not only kept Appalachian areas afloat, but in KY $$ gushed in coal counties.
Since then despair and broken promises. (It is the reason HRC’s unfortunate comment stung her so badly.)
Makes people want to see what all the fuss is about and likely makes the book more popular.
I used to work for a record importer/exporter. While I was Receivables Mgr there, we got a letter from the president of the Catholic League who was in a snit about a record we were supposedly selling. He was fit to be tied and offended beyond belief by this record that we were selling and should have been ashamed of.
I'd never heard of it. No one else who worked there had either but once the word got out via the letter from the compaining party being publicized by said party, all 1,500 copies of "Get Off the Cross, We Need the Wood for the Fire" by Tarwater literally FLEW off the shelves!!!
Then those Catholic League guys REALLY got mad!!!
I wonder if Tarwater had a follow-up record titled, "Drop That Cross One More Time and You're Out of the Easter Parade, Jesus".
Hahaha!
I was always partial to the one song name of "Me N Jesus Gonna Kick yer Ass!"
Hahahaha - my husband said that to me on our honey moon when we were at the stations of the cross in Quebec. Haven't heard it since.
Yep, it's an oldie but a goodie. It's been around since at least the '60s, when I first heard it.
Yes, that is indeed the way with any censored book. . .
This reminds me of the Republican outrage when Murphy Brown, a television character and not a real person, became a single mother on television. Dan Quayle, the United States Vice President at the time, criticized her character for "mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone".
So, who wants to take bets on Ms. Pippin's particular kink? Or is she so repressed she herself has never seen a penis or a naked male butt? Or perhaps little Mickey's little penis is the largest one she has ever seen? These people are ridiculous...and dangerous. And serial book banners like Pippin should have their complaints throw out or simply ignored, especially when she admits that she hasn't read the books.
Private colleges should make it clear that the high school diplomas from these Moms for Liberty run school districts are not valid for admission. Clearly the kids in these districts are being denied the opportunity for a decent education.
I think her kink is getting off on bossing other people around.
Or making sure everyone has the same kind of sad little life she has.
Yep, it’s about the power: mine over yours.
And don't forget...owning the libs! But this lib is never owned by these assholes. He finds them to be sad little people worthy of, at best pity, normally scorn, and is more than willing to humiliate them when exposing just how ridiculous they are.
I just thought of a new sitcom; insted of "I Dream of Genie", "I Dream of Penises".
Love it. As I said, I'm not convinced she has ever seen a real one.
Lord love a duck... Now they're defacing public property!! That's exactly what those books, purchased with school district funds, are - public property. That they feel so free to deface items purchased with EVERYONE'S tax dollars should enrage the non-MomsForStupidity parents in the district where this is occurring. Is there no end to this insanity?
I see a lawsuit in the works! Bring it on against the Moms for Liberty for violation of the First Amendment or defacement of taxpayer-purchased materials.
Exactly what I was thinking!
These people are absolutely ridiculous, and it's clear they have never seen or appreciated any classical art. The worst part of this is that my mom, a retired Pinellas County FL career teacher, says there is no way she would be a teacher today. This is a woman who, as a 55-year-old widow, went back to school to get her Master's degree in Special Education and finished out her career teaching special ed in an inner-city school. Imagine what young future teachers must be thinking.
Moms for Liberty my foot. There is no liberty in their intentions. I wonder how they teach their children about "the facts of life", or even if they do. Do they actually let their kids learn about sex "on the streets"? And then, shamefully, take their teenage daughters somewhere in secret to have the abortion they rail against in public? I know this happens because I've taken care of some of those unfortunate young ladies.
Those women are a disgrace to their own families. It's heartbreaking when you consider what can be gained by education. They should use these wonderful books to open up a dialogue between them and their own kids instead of taking that opportunity away from others. Not to mention a little thing like freedom of speech.
These "Moms" have stolen the word "liberty" from the rest of us. I am an actual mom (although not in Florida, and my kids are adults) and I want children and to have the freedom and liberty to read any book they want to, including classics by Maurice Sendak and Eric Carle. I don't want some right wing prude deciding which books shall have a public audience and which will not. More like "Moms for Lack of Liberty afforded to your children and mine." If they don't want their children to read "In the Night Kitchen" fine, they can restrict their child's access to it, or purchase their own copy and draw little underpants on the naked little boy.
Well said!
What a bunch of snowflakes. 🙄
These Moms for Liberty are repressed and messed up if they see nudity as “stimulating prurient interests”. We were born naked. What is more beautiful than a naked newborn child? It seems that museums with statues and paintings of naked people might be next. Where does this end?
Well, if the Libs are going to take down statues of confederate heroes, Cons should have the right to take down statues of naked people. Sarcasm alert activate.
This is more dogma than intelligence.
Former AG John Ashcroft beat you to it.
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/spirit-of-justice-statue-exposed-in-all-her-glory/
Images of those statues can be viewed here:
https://art.gsa.gov/objects/401/majesty-of-the-law
Spirit of Justice thumbnail is further down the page.
censoring mere nudity perverts mere nudity
I wonder if the "moms" of "liberty" have actually read a book instead of just looking at the pictures.
Jennifer, if course not, they only look at pictures! 🙄
They say, we want the NAUGHTY Bits!!!!
Or, key words.
They don’t need to do it themselves. They get lists of page numbers and those “key words”. Time saver that allows one or two people to wreak havoc on many libraries.
Well, then, i hate this even more now.
Yes, it is a widespread strategy used by and resourced by other organizations and they collaborate. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2023/10/05/website-driving-banned-books-surge-moms-for-liberty/70922213007/
Maybe Zuckerberg can work himself into this and issue another *blank*et apology to all those who've been harmed. Authors? Publishers? Book Sellers?
Claims of porno are just a start. Next on the list will be books depicting minorities as heroes.
To be followed by books about the Holocaust and... Cr@p!! Its already happening. https://pen.org/escambia-county-florida-banned-books-list/
TN made a big media splash when one of their districts banned Maus, the graphic novel about the Holocaust and how it affected the authors family. It was a graphic novel created for children. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/holocaust-novel-maus-banned-in-tennessee-school-district#:~:text=The%20McMinn%20County%20School%20Board,experiences%20as%20a%20Holocaust%20survivor.
I can only shake my head so much before it falls off my shoulders.
There are many Republican policies that I can agree. But I can't vote for Republicans who back this malarky or think that allowing any nut job to sue institutions, government, individuals for anything they dislike is good policy. This is a form of tyranny by people who do not have anything better to do with their lives than make it difficult for others to live theirs.
They’ve built a network to activate for their own purposes. Rather scary. DeSantis was giving them government appointments. Others are also. Then comes $$ for ‘consulting’. Blech.