How to Not Raise a Book-Burner

“Taking this school’s curriculum into our own hands,” the young activists captioned, as dozens of books by white authors were gleefully pulled from shelves and tossed into dumpsters by several teenage students.

Titles included The War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers, Stock Market Logic by norman G. Fosback, and, ironically, a history of Jean-Jacque Rousseau, a philosopher whose writings on civil rights and human nature partially inspired the French Revolution… Among many others.

(Quick note: I’m linking the video here for those who’d like to watch, but both the background song and the captions contain some pretty coarse language. Be warned.)

In skimming the replies to the video, I saw a screenshot of some messages allegedly from the video’s creator, who is a “summer custodian” for his high school.

He claimed that the video is satire, and the books were being thrown out as part of a planned cleaning-out of old titles… Which, even if true, still raises some questions.

Starting with: who determines which books go and which ones stay? And, have we lost our need for “old” books? I mean, The War Against Boys was published in 2000…

In any case, I’d be extremely interested in hearing more about how school libraries decide which books get to stay on the shelves, and which ones are too old, unsanitary, or otherwise deserving a trip to the dumpster. (If you have any insights to share on that front, feel free to shoot me back an email!)

Regardless, book-burning (satirical or not) is a pretty scary bandwagon to watch teenagers jump on. But, given the social-justice-dribble kids are being force-fed in public schools, should we be surprised at all?

Uh… Probably not. 

As concerned parents, we worry constantly about the forces battling for our kids’ minds. Whether the teacher’s unions and education establishment, the government propaganda machine, or the depths of TikTok, it’s easy to feel like raising thoughtful, well-adjusted children is impossible.

The bad news? Kids are impressionable.

The good news? Kids are impressionable.

Just because classrooms are going crazy doesn’t mean you have to give up. Children’s minds are incredibly elastic: given the right ideas, stimulus, and parental guidance, they will grow up into capable, responsible young adults. As in… the kind who don’t go ripping books they don’t like off the library shelves.

It’s not an easy task, but as parents, we have no choice but to step up to the challenge. Just look at the rest of society (if you need a starting point, go take a scroll through that Libs of TikTok page…) This world is in desperate need of reason and rationality. And our kids can be a part of the solution.

Ready to start the journey? The Tuttle Twins team is here to help.

The best part? Our books complement any education situation. Whether you’re fully independent homeschoolers, or making the best of public schools, our books will make sure your kids are getting a healthy dose of real-life truth.

So join me and the rest of the Tuttle Twins team in taking a stand against the crazy… Because burying our heads in the sand will only get us so far.

Now, let’s get reading!

—Connor