Excerpt: A People's History of Children's Stories

Noted historian and martini mixer Zowie Henn passed away earlier this year but had finished his final tome before passing. A People's History of Children's Stories attempts to rip the cotton candy out of the mouths of children and force them to swallow the bitter reality of what it is these 'entertainment' stories have actually told them. Easy to read and featuring numerous glossy photos of Zowie dressed up as various literary figures -- he's quite fetching as Little Red Riding Hood, A People's History of Children's Stories is Zowie at his finest and most insightful.


"Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man," boasts the Gingerbread Man and if only it were true.



Published immediately after the Civil War, The Gingerbread Man is a tale of racism and White Power. A woman, a White woman, is childless but she is also, pay attention, servantless. Did she bake the Gingerbread Man to have a child? Really?

No, she baked him to put him to work. And this is very clear from the start because despite the fact that this is the story of the Gingerbread Man, the White woman insists upon calling the brown skinned male "boy."

The Gingerbread Man catches on to what some readers don't and immediately attempts to escape. Like many a runaway slave and/or Beatle, he is pursued not just by the woman and her husband, but by the entire town.

In this manner, the story both anticipates and justifies the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and, in fact, foreshadows The Birth of a Nation. It is said by some that D.W. Griffin, director of the 1915 film, was a huge fan of The Gingerbread Man, first published five months after Griffin was born.

This violent and racist tale encourages children to embrace violence, racism and baked goods -- the latter of course being the most dangerous and an effort to raise children to believe that the Bolsheviks were wrong to kill Tsar Nicholas II's cook July 16, 1918. When the context is clearly sorted out, The Gingerbread Man is exposed as a reactionary text to be avoided at all costs. Run, run, Gingerbread Man, in our heart of hearts, you escape.