A report from the Swedish Children’s Book Institute claims that the hottest trends in children’s literature last year were books on sexual harassment and abuse, and promoting veganism.
A large number of the books published in 2017 that focused on sexual harassment mostly featuring young girls as protagonists, but also some with young boys as well, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports.
In fact, according to the report, 72 per cent of all the children’s books published in Sweden in 2017 contained a female protagonist.
Social justice issues were also prevalent such as the themes on gender and transsexuality. Many books also included “non-binary” and trans lead characters, as well.
Breitbart London reported on the book Hästen & Husse last year which featured a male protagonist who liked to dress up in women’s clothing along with his pet horse who believed he was a dog.
The book’s target audience was said to be preschoolers and toddlers with author Susanne Pelger saying she hoped it would educate the young children and encourage them to “be who they want”.
Transgender picture book for tots promotes cross-dressing and features a "trans-species" horse-dog. Quite the departure from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. https://t.co/fJ0j9iBl4T
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 21, 2017
The other main theme for children’s books was the subject of veganism with many children’s books questioning meat eating and featuring characters eating soy-based products instead.
Social Justice ideology is nothing new in the Swedish publishing world but has led to some complaints from those within the industry. Last month, Book publisher Kristoffer Lind from the publishing house Lind & Co slammed the government for prioritising social justice literature over all else.
“If you have a reputable African female writer, you can get support for anything. But for a white American, it does not matter if he won the Nobel Prize, it’s hard to get support,” Lind said.
Literature has not been the only field affected by social justice ideology. An archaeological team from the University of Uppsala released a groundbreaking finding last year claiming to have found Islamic script in ancient Viking artefacts.
Shortly after the announcement of the discovery, an expert in Kufic script debunked the claim, saying that the Viking clothing which supposedly contained the writing was made hundreds of years before it was even invented.
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