Woke children's books are dominating the shelves with titles like 'Antiracist ...

Once upon a time it was simple. Children went to sleep on a diet of bedtime stories that grew out of folklore, depended on magic or were just enchantingly simple: Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Goodnight Moon.

Not anymore, because these days bedtime is all about getting woke.

Take a glance at the shelves of the children's department of any major bookstore.

Teach Your Dragon About Diversity, sits next to Daddy & Dada. Glance a few books along and you'll find, Joey, not a heartwarming tale about a baby kangaroo, but an illustrated hagiography of Joe Biden written by, 'best-selling author,' Jill Biden.

And let's not forget, 'Kamala Harris: Rooted in Justice,' because what four -year-old doesn't want to hear about the Vice President's political rise? 

There are books about transgender infants, queer families and dreamers, but the subject that dominates all others, bound up in the pages of child-friendly picture books, is race – that and a dollop of police brutality and activism.

The sales of books about race exploded across all age groups last summer as protests over the death of George Floyd tore across the world.

At the peak of the summer's disturbances seven out of Amazon's top ten titles and nine out of Barnes & Noble's took on the subject of race.

On June 1, Libro.fm, a company that partners with 1,200 bookstores in the US and Canada to sell audiobooks, reported that every book on its top ten sellers list was about race and that the titles had sold 500 per cent more than on May 1.

Sales of 'White Fragility' by Robin Diangelo jumped by 2000 per cent. Against this sales frenzy, Penguin Young Readers tripled their print-run of Ibram X Kendi's 'Antiracist Baby.' The book's initial print run was 50,000. Seeing the swell in demand and pre-orders the company ordered an additional 100,000.

Kendi's confrontationally titled book starts with the assertion, 'Antiracist baby is bred, not born' and proceeds to set down nine steps for parents eager to rear 'accountable' children.

Though his book is supposedly aimed at children aged 0-3, Kendi is not primarily a children's author. He is the controversial poster boy for critical race theory and author of 'Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You,' listed by the American Libraries Association as one of the most banned and challenged books of 2020.

Parents' challenges to school boards in districts whose reading lists featured the book included the argument that Kendi practiced, 'selective storytelling' and, 'does not encompass racism against all people.'

For his part Kendi – born Ibram Henry Rogers in Queens, the son of Methodist ministers Carol and Larry Rogers – makes no apology for preaching a discriminatory creed.

He has stated, 'The only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.'

This, according to John Butcher, Will Skillman Education Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, is the worldview that informs all Kendi's work and has no place in the pages of children's books.

Speaking to DailyMail.com, Butcher, whose book 'Splintered: Critical Race Theory and The Progressive War on the Truth,' is out in February, explained, 'All of these books are meant to drive home the message to these young children that life is about struggle. But one of the main problems of critical race theory is what's the ultimate objective? What are we trying to do that makes the world a better place than when we started?

'With Kendi's work you never get to that place where there's some sort of policy, prescription or cultural healing. And what's significant about Kendi's stance is that he's saying discrimination is appropriate, right? We shouldn't be teaching our children that discrimination has any place ever.'

What's more, according to Butcher the notion of 'anti-racism,' promoted by Kendi is 'the perfect trap.' He said 'Everyone's a racist unless they're an anti-racist, it's not enough to say you think racism is evil, you're a racist unless you're an anti-racist. There's no way out. It's an infinite loop.'

In 'Woke Baby!' Mahogany L. Browne writes of a race struggle that starts in the crib. 'Woke Babies raise their fists in the air. Woke babies cry out for justice.'

The illustrations show a black baby wearing a onesie with a panther emblem on his chest.

The text alongside them reads, 'Look at your fists. Fingers curled into a panther's paw pointing up up up, reaching out for justice.'

And while un-woke babies presumably just learn to crawl, 'Woke Baby' takes a knee (or two) and rises, 'Up up up on each knee, bent like half-moons. Woke Baby, you are an awakened dream.'

Self-styled 'children's author' Browne is the Executive Director of JustMedia an organization that purports to push for 'Transformative Justice,' and leans heavily on the topic of police brutality.

The organization's website includes a 'learning companion' to Ava DuVernay's controversial Netflix drama about the Central Park Five, 'When They See Us.'

Former New York City prosecutor, Linda Fairstein, is currently suing over the depiction of her role in events surrounding the Central Park rape and subsequent prosecution of five young black men, and the drama has been branded willfully inaccurate and dangerous.

JustMedia's site also provides a link to, 'Incite! Women of Color

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