I remember reading about Ferdinand as a child, but I had never heard of the other book. That was amazing to read! and made me long for an America whose children and grownups were as patriotic today as they were then.

Well...I got a little different impression there.

From the book?

I came across the Munro Leaf book on IowaHawk. One of my right-wing extremist freinds sent it to me and, what do you know, I see a comment from little miss attila.What a small world! I hope you're doing well.

The book appears to have gone AWOL now.

But yes, the book. I especially liked the parts about "keeping your mouth shut", "obeying the authorities", and "giving more money to the government". Good conservative patriotic values all.

Children and "grownups" alike, indeed.

not awol...just the dad gummed internet filtering software at my place of employ...

Hi, Daphne!

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Desert Cat:

It was a different world during that war: you've got a point, but I've read a lot of children's literature from that time in which creative expression was actually tied to the buying of war bond (*The Four-Story Mistake* comes to mind in particular).

I guess the "mouth shut" and "obey authorities" stuff didn't bother me much because it was a book directed at children. Keep in mind that I was raised by hippies, and the whole "question authority" mindset doesn't really work in a child-rearing context--even my most BoHo friends with kids seem to recognize that now.

The "question authority" approach to child-rearing very often ends up turning parents into hypocrites, more than anything else. At least, that's been my experience.

All that said, I do think a lot of people would find the WoT more palatable if there were some kind of sacrifice the common person--child and "grownup" alike--could make that would make him/her feel like part of the war effort.

And I don't think there's any danger of IowaHawk turning us all into mindless conformists anytime soon.