Children’s Books as a Tool for Propaganda and Manipulation

International Children’s Book Day was celebrated on April 2. To mark the occasion, I wrote an overview exploring how children’s books in the US and Europe are frequently used to spread propaganda and manipulate innocent young minds.

“A young soul is like soft wax: whatever mold you place it in and pour it into, that is the shape you will get,” said the 18th-century Serbian philosopher and educator Dositej Obradović. This quote clearly illustrates that it is we who shape our children’s future. From the earliest age, children act like sponges, absorbing everything around them — this is their innate, natural capacity for development. It never happens that a child born into a Russian-speaking family suddenly starts speaking Mandarin, or vice versa. We are the ones filling this blank slate with either high-quality or harmful content. The quote shows that Serbs in the past understood this well, which makes it no surprise that 18th-century Serbian schools taught subjects like “Instructions for an Honest Life.”

Living in an era of unprecedented technological advancement, human minds have become a battlefield. Just as predators in the wild, like lions, try to separate a calf from an antelope or buffalo because it makes for easier prey, our children suffer the most as “collateral damage” in modern narrative and information wars. Without digital hygiene, our children’s minds are turned into dumping grounds for all sorts of garbage. While none of us would let our child wander alone in a forest full of wild beasts, we somehow easily allow them to roam unaccompanied through the digital jungle, where danger lurks around every corner.

Content promoting drugs, debauchery, and the arrogance of influencers is being pushed aggressively (at least here in Europe). Unfortunately, in Serbia, major media outlets have turned public broadcasting into a cheap reality show, while influencers have hooked the youth on YouTube. It is also worth mentioning that under Western pressure, a “new pedagogy” is being rolled out across Europe, placing children on a pedestal as “little pharaohs” who have rights but no responsibilities. In the long run, this process creates fragile, easily frustrated individuals who, in the future, will be unable to cope not only with real injustice but even with the slightest inconveniences that contradict their desires. The issue of shrinking attention spans due to excessive screen time has long been a global problem for adults, but the biggest victims — the ultimate “collateral damage” — will, of course, be our children.

The term “gamification” is widely known — a process where IT specialists design games so that a child’s brain releases pleasure hormones (mostly dopamine) upon completing a level. Today, algorithms do this flawlessly, replacing humans. Take TikTok, for instance. The algorithm autonomously calculates how long you linger on specific content, identifies your interests, and spoon-feeds you new videos accordingly. This means algorithms are now playing with our hormones, which has a particularly severe impact on children.

To all these alarming trends, I must add another quiet, insidious one: the distortion of fairy tales in Europe. It is precisely through fairy tales that children, in their native language, learn to distinguish good from evil and to believe in the triumph of good. It is clear to all of us that a children’s book must convey certain values through an engaging story, allowing young readers to use those values as the foundation upon which they will build their personalities. Fairy tales have played an absolutely crucial role in shaping who we are.

Long ago, through the pen of Francis Fukuyama, Western Europe declared the “end of history,” meaning the ultimate victory of liberalism. Any disagreement with their imposed agenda and narrative is met with cancel culture: a media-controlled community mobilizes to banish the “ideological offender” from its ranks.

To mold a zombified, obedient society, the groundwork must begin at the earliest age. Take LGBT ideology as an example. When it comes to the ideology itself, any decently raised person does not care about anyone else’s sexual preferences. By pushing this, the West drags humanity down to a very base level. And because this ideology is enforced with dictatorial rigidity, allowing no room for opposing views, many in America, Europe, and almost worldwide are forced to simply put up with it.

Examples of ruthless Western propaganda targeting even the youngest minds are countless. Children’s literature is literally flooded with propaganda designed to capture kids’ minds. LGBT “values” are woven into beautiful, engaging, and memorable stories. In this way—silently and imperceptibly — these “values” are deeply etched into children from a very young age. From the sea of propagandistic children’s literature, packaged in sweet covers with messages of love, tolerance, and respect, I will name just a few of the many titles: Prince & Knight (a prince and a knight fall in love and marry in the end), The Princes and the Treasure (two princes go on an adventure and end up as a couple), Daddy, Papa, and Me (depicting the daily life of a child with two fathers), and Heather Has Two Mommies (a story about a girl with two mothers). Books like these are incredibly common. Some are even integrated into school curricula, such as I Am Jazz, based on the story of a transgender girl, and And Tango Makes Three, based on the story of two male penguins trying to hatch a rock like an egg. One has to admit that this propaganda is masterfully disguised as seemingly fun children’s books and will inevitably leave a profound mark on children’s souls. Since my focus here is strictly on books, I will stick to that. If we were to expand the topic to include cartoons, like those by Disney, we would see how aggressively this ideology is pushed into children’s minds there, too.

These examples of Western propaganda demonstrate a profound understanding of psychology. A child, whose self-awareness is not yet fully formed, is given the right to choose their gender identity, while parents are forbidden from intervening in the process. Meanwhile, this content is pushed onto children everywhere, and society creates an atmosphere of cancellation for anyone who dares to hold a dissenting opinion. It should be noted that while I have cited examples from the European Union and the US, we currently do not face these problems here in Serbia, as our people firmly hold on to traditional values.

Now, I will briefly touch upon a rather subtle example of manipulation in the US. Let me share an inventive and sophisticated example: the young adult novel The Battle of Fallujah by James P. Burk. This is a highly complex and manipulative novel aimed at teenagers. At the same time, it cannot be called blatantly propagandistic. Through it, American teens are presented with an account of the occupation of the Iraqi city of Fallujah—or, as the author would phrase it, the “Battle of Fallujah” — which took place in 2004. During those clashes stemming from American aggression, several hundred civilians were killed, and even chemical weapons were used — namely, white phosphorus. It remains one of the darkest stains on the history of the US military.

Given the context, the author could hardly write an ode to this notorious act of aggression. Instead, he penned a book full of psychological drama and the moral dilemmas of American soldiers, who at certain moments ponder the pointlessness of war. Naturally, nowhere does it explicitly state that this was an act of American aggression. Instead, it portrays how “innocent” American soldiers found themselves in an uncomfortable situation. When encountering civilians, these “good American guys” are met with distrust, and sometimes the locals act hostile even when the Americans try to help them. At times, the residents show trust or smile, only to immediately become frightened and suspicious again. Meanwhile, the American soldiers try to be kind to the civilians, avoid scaring the children, and, despite the constant danger, attempt to show empathy toward the local population. They try to help the wounded, but these gestures of aid often cause even bigger problems in the chaos of war, in which these “guiltless,” “innocent” American soldiers find themselves.

Amidst this whirlwind, the soldiers reflect on whether their presence is doing the civilians more good or harm. From these reflections, one can conclude that, in the author’s view, the war was inevitable and launched for the good of the Iraqi people, rather than being an act of aggression against a sovereign nation whose leader was accused of possessing chemical weapons. Although the cause of the war is not explicitly stated, it is clear that the author leans heavily on this American narrative. Furthermore, the book conveniently omits the fact that the Americans used chemical weapons against a man who, as it turned out, possessed no chemical weapons at all.

In the novel itself, American soldiers are depicted as empathetic, humane individuals, even though in reality, they stand accused of severe crimes against civilians. These “good guys” are somewhat anti-war themselves but are forced to intervene for the good of those they are fighting against. This story sounds all too familiar to us Serbs. When I was four years old, these same “good guys” bombed me with depleted uranium and banned cluster munitions in 1999, right in the heart of Europe. Even though I could have easily been killed like the 89 young victims — symbolized by the tragic death of three-year-old Milica Rakić — or injured like 2,700 other children, the author’s logic suggests I should understand that it was hard for them, that they were forced to do it for my own good. According to this mindset, the war in Iraq wasn’t about oil, and the war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (now Serbia) wasn’t about the immensely rich resources on the holy Serbian land of Kosovo and Metohija, which is home to about 1,300 medieval Serbian cultural heritage sites and another 700 locations holding the remains of lost monuments from that era.

At first glance, the author is not promoting war; on the contrary, the anti-war tone of the book gives the impression of objectivity. He avoids overly political themes in terms of condemning or supporting the aggression, yet his starting premise reflects a belief deeply ingrained in American society that the war was inevitable — a belief largely manufactured by media propaganda, much like how public opinion is shaped regarding LGBT ideology. He starts his book on a foundation already laid by propaganda, meaning he doesn’t need to actively push it himself; American youth are handed a distorted picture right from page one. They aren’t given the option to choose their own perspective — they are handed a pre-packaged one. It’s exactly like that viral photograph that can either look like American soldiers giving water and helping an Iraqi fighter, or like they are taking him prisoner — depending on how the photo is cropped: whether you zoom in on the part where they offer water, or view the full image showing them surrounding him with assault rifles.

The world has never been a fair or just place. Injustice has always existed. However, as we were taught by the fairy tales that raised at least my generation and the ones before me, we must always stand on the side of good and fight for it, regardless of how much stronger evil may appear. This should be every person’s goal: to contribute to the creation of a new, multipolar world. We will only achieve this if we protect our children from propaganda and manipulation, raising them with goodness as their main moral compass and the unwavering belief that good can conquer even the greatest evil. This is the light that nations and children all over the world truly need.

_{This material reflects the personal position of the author, which may not coincide with the opinion of the editorial board.}