The local leader of Moms for Liberty was outraged! There was a book in the elementary school library that depicted a naked child! Another showed the naked butt of a goblin! What depravity!
Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria at Popular Information have the story, which actually happened in Indian River County, Florida, when Jennifer Pippen of Moms for Liberty complained about Maurice Sendak’s classic In the Night Kitchen.
Pippen said the book was “pornographic” because it showed a naked little boy in a bathtub; if you peered closely, you could see that the little boy had a penis. Shocking!
The other book that offended Pippen was Unicorns Are the Worst, which depicted a goblin with a naked butt.
The answer: Draw clothing on the “pornographic” images. So now the little boy is taking a bath while wearing shorts, and the goblin has long pants on.
In other cases, the Indian River County librarians were more creative. Another book Pippin sought to remove was Draw Me A Star by Eric Carle, who is best known for The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Pippin was concerned about this image of “two adults that were naked.” She said that her concerns were addressed when the district librarians drew “board shorts on the man” and “put the girl in a bikini.”
Also targeted was the book No, David! because it included this image.
Well, you simply can’t show Adam and Eve buck naked in the Garden of Eden, can you? Or can the author and illustrator of a children’s book show a boy’s butt.
It would be satisfying if the author or publisher of the targeted books sued the district for defacing them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ridiculous. Butts are hilarious, all children and sensible adults agree.
Yeah, with Adam and Eve, they gotta go back to draw Bridget!
What a sad group of repressed people the M4L are! Modesty or the lack there of is the product of acculturation. Unfortunately, these moms have been trained that the human body is dirty, sinful and wicked. In a world where people are dying from man’s inhumanity towards man, and the forests are in flames, we have many more important issues that demand our attention. Life is too short and fragile to worry about putting pants fictitious creatures. These pathetic ladies are brainwashed political pawns.
Where is H. L. Mencken when we need him? Those self-righteous prudes need to be ridiculed and laughed off the stage they’ve built for themselves.
These assholes (excuse my French) think nothing of violating copyrights. I think they should be sued to the max.
M4FL • Moms For Fig Leaves
Good one!
Jon A.: ❤️❤️❤️
Shhhh. Don’t tell Moms for Liberty that Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 depict nudity—a naked woman and a naked man with a (gasp!) naked penis. If they knew, then Moms for Liberty might mount efforts to go retrieve the spacecraft to avoid the possibly of them being found by aliens who would then “groom” their children.
Pioneer 10, 7.6 billions miles away from Earth as of January 2003.
Pioneer 11, now an estimated 10.2 billion miles away from Earth.
Come to think of it, do tell Moms for Liberty and let’s hope they do mount efforts to go after the spacecrafts.
Great idea! Thanks, Ed.
I would hate to see how the Moms for Liberty are raising their children. There kids are going to turn out to be very prudish and in the end raise their children, if they are lucky enough to figure out how that happens, or totally rebellious be very promiscuous. I hope the MFLs have removed their bibles from their homes.
I’m holding out hope that all their kids become the most fabulous group of drag queens we’ve ever seen.
Craig,
You remind me of the story about the prominent psychiatrist who was the most outspoken critic of accepting gays in the American Psychiatric Association. He insisted on maintaining the official diagnosis of homosexuality as a practice that was pathological and must be cured.
His advocacy ended when he found out that his oldest son was gay.
That son worked in the Clinton administration as liaison to the gay community. You probably know his name. I can’t recall.
Richard Socarides
Craig,
Bingo!
quite likely, Craig
60 Minutes goes at Moms for Liberty. Starts at 15:57…
https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/uRj456tZwUZjk4QjTFtw5C9bIuM5isFO/
Thanks, Ed. Reassuring to see democracy in action at this very local level.
@bethree5 — Excellent watch. Thank you.
I watched and commend CBS on being fair and balanced. M4L is a propaganda machine built on a house of cards. The main representative had to refer to list of talking points in order to evade the question. Neither lady dared to explain the term “groomer.” They simply use the word for shock value.
I would like the word “groom” to be restored to its original meaning.
It’s about being well dressed, clean, and presentable.
Do you have good grooming?
Are you well groomed?
Yes!!
I only *wish* i had been groomed in school. You should have seen my hair. Phew.
My mother groomed me. She made me brush my hair, wear my clothing correctly, shine my shoes when they got smudged. My teachers were interested mainly in my handwriting. Not so much in grooming.
@Diane — I taught children with Eric Carle’s works for more than 20 years via my “Creature Collage” at our Kids Discover Arts. I had all his books as well. I was double-checking, “Draw Me a Star” and this was from two years ago. I guess anatomy, life drawing, art history and such are out the window as well, eh? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqXomJCB0fw
Continuous interrelatedness of life and things beautifully told and illustrated! Thanks for sharing. I just ordered a few copies for my Little Free Library.
This is a place I want to visit. Be sure to read the bio of Eric Carle. Great read. I spent many summers emulating the collage papers to help my kids learn about the true essence of “making” through my workshops. https://www.carlemuseum.org
A colleague of mine was sent to the state licensing bureau for suggesting a student who wanted to learn to draw the human form take a book with nude artwork out of the school’s own library. This was about 19 years ago, before the crazy M4L crap started.
Look what happened to David. https://visionaireworld.com/blogs/imported/st-petersburg-we-dressed-michelangelo-s-david-for-you I didn’t have a fig leaf, I apologize.
I’m waiting for them to ban Bible. It’s much racier.
I remember my grandpa telling me, “Richard, I read the Bible and it is filled with sex.”
Happened already to n Utah. The state legislature came unglued and brought the district superintendent and school board president to the capital for a grilling this last summer. The Bible was subsequently returned to the libraries.
Guess we’re in Counter-Reformation times again. Back when they had loincloths and drapes painted onto figures in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. The first coverup artist, Volterra, got the pop nickname “Il Braghettone– the “breeches-maker.”
I vaguely recall that Reagan’s Attorney General—either John Mitchell or Ed Meese—asked the building staff to cover the private parts of a Grecian statue in the hall.
it was John Ashcroft, who wasted a bunch of taxpayer money hiding Lady Justice’s nudity behind blue curtains at the DOJ.
Yes, that’s right! John Ashcroft was offended by the nudity of Lady Justice!
I bet she has her head buried in her face after the recent Supreme Court decisions.
Yes, Bob, they took that schmatta off her genitals and covered Lady Justice’s face with it.
I was aware that the counter reformation produced the proliferation of art we call the baroque. I never heard of a great deal of modesty except in the Protestants, who often were iconoclasts.
When will they be banning the dictionary, which has words like ass and penis in it?
They could just black out the bad words without banning the dictionary. On second thought, I posted a few weeks ago about a Florida district that did ban dictionaries. Five of them. Bad nasty words.
Jeez, I hope they don’t catch on to Wacky Wednesday. For 15 years my kindergartners fall over laughing.
So do their kids take baths fully dressed?
@Allison — I thought the same thing! Curious, though, I checked out one of the all time most read books by young kids — Captain Underpants. And sure enough. Well, read for yourself. https://www.businessinsider.com/why-captain-underpants-is-the-most-banned-book-in-america-2013-9
That’s a good one, Rick!
A friend of mine told me his grandmother (born late 1800s i think) once stated that she had not, in her memory, been totally naked since birth. She stated that she bathed with cloth exposing different parts of her body to cleaning at different stages. I was led to believe that she took a bit of pride in this.
Germany prohibits these letter combinations on license plates: SS (Nazi paramilitary), SA (storm troopers), HJ (Hitler Youth), KZ (concentration camp), and NS (national socialism).
On the other hand, we tolerate the glorification of Nazism and the Lost Cause, preferring to argue over a fig leaf.
Steve