Credit: PBSAttempts to ban books from public schools and libraries in the United States reached an all-time high in 2022, and it does not look like things will be any different in 2023. This time, the beloved children’s character Arthur is the target of conservative ire.
The American Library Association documented more than 2,500 unique titles being challenged for their placement in schools and libraries in an attempt to have them removed from shelves (commonly referred to as a “book ban”), by far the most ever since the ALA began tracking the data.
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The newest and one of the stranger cases of this is happening in the Clay County school district in Florida (per The Guardian), where a man named Bruce Friedman has challenged Arthur’s Birthday (1989), a children’s book by author Marc Brown in which the eponymous anthropomorphic aardvark who celebrates his birthday the same day as another child.
Friedman’s specific issue with Arthur’s Birthday is that at one point in the book, Arthur is given a glass bottle with the words “Francine’s Spin the Bottle Game” as a present. As Friedman puts it (in capital letters, with an exclamation mark) in his challenge, it is his belief that “It is not appropriate to discuss ‘spin the bottle’ with elementary school children…This book is found in all/almost all [district schools]! Spin the bottle’ not okay for K-5 kids.”
In the section responding to the question, “What do you believe might be the result of a student using this material?” Friedman simply responded, “DAMAGED SOULS.”
It appears that Bruce Friedman is the Florida chapter president of No Left Turn in Education, a citizen’s group that describes itself as “[A] national grassroots movement of common-sense parents and community members from diverse backgrounds, building generational integrity through education free from indoctrination.”
Specifically, No Left Turn in Education cites “The 1619 Project, to Critical Race Theory, to Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE)” as having the “goal… to overturn our society by sowing divisiveness and hate.”
In this case, Arthur the aardvark appears to be acting as a proxy in efforts to overturn society in this manner.
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It is worth noting that the case over Arthur’s Birthday is occurring in Florida, a state led by Governor Ron DeSantis, who has made a national platform of combatting “woke radical leftists” such as the Walt Disney Company and Anheuser-Busch, the manufacturer of Bud Light beer.
At the very least, it can be stated confidently that Florida has many activists who work to remove materials like Arthur’s Birthday from schools and libraries; reportedly, Clay County currently has 45 other titles under similar challenges that it is evaluating. The Baby-Sitters Club better look out.
Do you think Arthur’s Birthday is acceptable for schools? Let us know in the comments below.