The children’s publishing giant Scholastic has come out with a pro-transgender book for kids, and they’re getting some extra promotional help from taxpayer-funded National Public Radio (NPR).
The book tells the story of 10-year-old George who says he doesn’t feel like a boy, so he wants everyone to know he’s really “Melissa.”
The story is written by a transgender author and is targeted at young children in 3rd to 7th grade.
NPR reports Scholastic sent the book to 10,000 teachers and children’s librarians. They also took the author to major book fairs to promote the transgender tale.
The NPR report allowed no traditional views about human sexuality to be presented in their story, instead providing only one-sided coverage with a pro-transgender agenda.
But the report did reveal that the book was originally called Girl George, until Scholastic changed the title just to George so it could slip under the radar, making it more acceptable to a wider audience.
“The trick was getting George into as many readers’ hands as possible,” NPR reports.
Critics say books like this will only create confusion for young, elementary school-aged children.
“It’s challenging enough for normal children to navigate and come to terms with their gender, identity, what it means to be male or female,” said Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council.
“Things like this are only going to create greater confusion, add greater confusion to the struggles that in the ordinary course of things most children will have,” he continued.
And Sprigg says books like this are not necessarily compassionate toward struggling children because they may even prevent children with gender issues from receiving helpful treatment.
“It may plant ideas in the minds of those who are struggling in some way. And this is completely unnecessary because what the research shows is that most children who struggle with gender identity issues actually have those issues resolved before adulthood and do not change their gender identity from their biological sex at birth,” Sprigg explained.
Scholastic’s initial print run for the book was 50,000 copies.
And the children’s publisher has even bigger dreams for George. Their editorial director David Levithan compares it to the way they successfully packaged The Hunger Games, by making a difficult story about children killing children more palatable to a very large audience.
“Levithan said that The Hunger Games is like George in that people may relate to the story more than they might think,” the NPR report states.
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