Kirk Cameron Is Coming For Your Children's Book Fairs

This crosses a line.

One of the best days every year in elementary school was always, obviously, the Scholastic book fair. I mean, sure, we got those scholastic catalogs every month or so (they probably don’t still do that, because internet) where you could check out which books you wanted while your mom repeatedly reminded you that libraries exist — but getting to take time out of class to go look at and perhaps even buy some new books? Heaven.

Field trips were fine, I guess, if you like standing in 90 degree heat so the pretend blacksmith at Sturbridge Village can show you how horseshoes are made, but I preferred the book fair.

Now, Kirk Cameron, who is the worst, wants to ruin that day. He wants to replace the Scholastic Book Fair with the Kirk Cameron Book Fair. Oh … joy.

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OK, so it’s not actually the Kirk Cameron Book Fair, but it might as well be. It’s the SkyTree Book Fair, organized by Brave Books, which publishes terrible right-wing Christian books for children. The company features such titles as …

Elephants Are Not Birds, by Ashley St. Clair, a woman who was kicked out of Turning Point USA for palling around with white supremacists like Nick Fuentes

The Island of Free Ice Cream, by Jack Posobiec, noted Pizzagate idiot (The book is about evil wolves offering free ice cream and the moral of the story is that capitalism is good)

Paws Off My Cannon, by former NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch.

The Night the Snow Monster Attacked, by General Michael Flynn

Freedom Day the Asher Way, by Dinesh and Debbie D’Souza

The Parrots Go Bananas, by Sean Spicer

And, of course, multiple books by Kirk Cameron himself.

Why is he doing this? Because Scholastic has some books about LGBTQ+ kids and issues that absolutely no one is required to buy.

“They’re a billion-dollar company, around for over 100 years,” Cameron told the Moonie Times. “They have over 100,000 book fairs around the country, hundreds every single day in public and private schools, and the books are increasingly laced with gender-confusing, race-infused, pornographic, sexually explicit material that you can’t even advertise on Facebook.”

This is all very ridiculous, but more importantly … what the hell is “race-infused?” What does that even mean? I am honestly more confused about that than I am about the CBD-infused leggings I saw this morning (sounds a lot like bullshit!). Does it just mean, like, mentioning that Black people exist? Or that racism exists? Is it like homeopathy?

Now, it would be one thing if these people wanted to hold book fairs at private Christian schools — but they’re aiming for public schools. In fact, they are holding their first book fair at a public school today, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, featuring Kirk Cameron himself. That will surely be very exciting for kids born years after Growing Pains was last in syndication. Will Scott Baio also be attending?

Now, if you think this isn’t stupid enough, allow me to introduce you to Lanah Burkhardt, a 20-year-old woman who blames her “porn addiction” on, I shit you not, having seen “a single kiss” in a Scholastic book, at the age of 11.

Lanah also just so happens to be the public relations coordinator at Brave Books. So weird!

She explains:

My story started when I was 11 and was introduced to a single kiss in a scholastic book. I didn’t understand why I liked it.

This was the start of my porn addiction journey.

I was then very curious and began exploring and it only got worse. I looked for other books that gave me pleasure and it led to internet searches that I will never forget. I was addicted, every night and it was something I immediately regretted and eventually became depressed about. When I was 13 years old, I told my mom I wanted to die.

I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.

OK, so we are meant to believe that this was the literal first time this girl ever saw a kiss? Like, in eleven years she never saw a Disney movie? Never saw any movie, period?

Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby at Popular Information reported that “Burkhardt cited her story as a reason to restrict access to Drama, a novel published by Scholastic.”

This is the naughty kissing scene in question. This.

Further on in Burkhardt’s speech, which was shared to social media by Sky Tree Book Fairs, she said she also wanted Scholastic Book Fairs abolished from all schools, forever, so that no other 11-year-old child ever accidentally sees a cartoon of people kissing again. Or reads such obvious pornography as “Boy-crazy Stacey!,” book #8 of that tawdry Babysitters’ Club series sold by Scholastic.

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Ironically, this actually seems more like an argument against preventing your child from ever seeing people kiss in a cartoon or in a book. Like, if you don’t so much as let your kid watch an anthropomorphic crab sing a song to a mermaid about how she needs to kiss the prince before the evil witch turns her into seafoam, then maybe they do, at the age of 11, see a drawing of people kissing and go bananas.

Hell, I saw my first naked man’s ass when I was 8 because my mom rented Yentl for me to watch while I was sick (this is normal, shut up) and the only effect that had on me has been my lifelong crush on Mandy Patinkin (also normal, there are others).

In conclusion, the children should read books and watch all the Barbra Streisand movies and Christian book companies should not be allowed to do book fairs at public schools, because First Amendment, that’s why.

OPEN THREAD!