The Madville Times has uncovered an insidious plot against religion purveyed by a trilogy of infidel texts that have infiltrated our own extensive children's library. This assault on piety comes from the nefarious New York City cartoonist Syd Hoff, a man from a distinctly non-Christian background. While waking up with what we thought was a good book, Madville Times Jr. and I came upon a clear slap in the face of her nascent Christian faith disguised in the misleading images of a beautiful white bird in Hoff's 1961 Albert the Albatross. Albert, blown to the city by a storm, is asking familiar-looking characters in this strange world how to get back home. He asks a parrot, a cuckoo clock, and a woodpecker, to no avail. And then he comes to a church steeple, atop which sits a windvane with a sculpted bird."Have you seen the ocean?" Albert asked a bird on a church.
The bird was made of tin. It could not say anything [pp. 18-19]
The symbolism was lost on neither of us. A tin bird, unable to speak, unable to offer direction as it sits upon a compass (gasp!) shaped like a cross. We were shocked to encounter such anti-Christian propaganda, especially on this sacredly quiet Sunday morning with gentle snow blessing us with proof -- proof, I say! -- that global warming is a socialist lie.
But Syd Hoff has a history of anti-Christian propaganda. Hoff's 1958 Danny and the Dinosaur references the dinosaur's age as a hundred
million years... twice! [pp. 26, 61] Hoff's 1959 Sammy the Seal is a carnival of pornography, with Sammy encountering a man clothed in nothing but a bathrobe [p. 35] and a female teacher (clearly a secular humanist) in a slinky, low-cut dress and lurid spike-heeled shoes [pp. 38-59]. All three books are rife with liberal anthropomorphism, with all those smiling and talking birds and reptiles and mammals confusing our youth about man's special place in creation. And the kicker -- The DaHoffi Code, we might call it -- lies in the sequence of these three titles:- Danny and the Dinosaur
- Sammy the Seal
- Albert the Albatross
Syd Hoff has infected our culture with his irreligiosity. Numerous times younger friends have come to visit, seen these vile works in our house, and said (for instance), "Oh! Sammy the Seal! I had that book when I was a kid! I loved it!" How has this conspiracy gone unnoticed for so long? How could the defenders of the faith sleep in the garden while one man purveyed such betrayal? Who will take a stand against this monumental evil and save the masses and the innocent children from their ignorance?
Not me: Madville Times Jr. loves making tap-tap-tap sounds when we get to the woodpecker. Plus, she's learning to say "cuckoo." Besides, burning books releases greenhouse gases.
Cross-posted at KELOLand.com!
I for one, simply cannot bring my children to your house anymore, not after seeing your blatant support for that evil tome "The Very Hungey Caterpillar".
ReplyDeleteThe caterpillar is an obvious reference to the Catholic Church, which begans feasting on creation on Sunday. The clearly transparant symbology of fruits to the different world nations, culminating with the gorging of "junk food" i.e. America, which happans over a 7 day period - in antithesis to the fundementalist view of God creating the world in 7 days.
Me and mine simply cannot abide your intolerance of our faith any longer.
joe "heretic" nelson
Don't even ge me started on "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?"
Brilliant, Private Nelson! Who says "military intelligence" is an oxymoron? :-)
ReplyDeleteit is Specialist Nelson.... :)
ReplyDeleteThere's a crazy amount of symbolism in everything. The question is, was it the author's intention or is it someone's interpretation.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to venture a guess that if literature analysts looked at all the children's books that were out there, they would find something questionable about any topic whether it was innocently crafted or intentially put out there as a subliminal stab at faith, politics or whatever.