Humour: Save our kids, ban these books

I don't know about you, but I believe children are our future.

Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride and... I think I'll stop there.

I don't know what came over me there, but it will be vomit if I continue with that drivel.

But yes, this column is for the kids.

As I sit here, in my white silk robe in deep contemplation, I worry for our children's safety. I don't worry about climate change, deforestation or Middle East tensions.

I worry about penguins. The greatest threat to our kids' survival comes from an animated children's book about penguins.

So, as a best-selling author of children's books, allow me to join the merry dance around the funeral pyre and throw in a few other so-called classics to save our children's souls.

Oliver Twist

Many ignorant fools consider Dickens' definitive work to be about the redemptive powers of the human spirit to overcome all adversity. Nonsense. It's a book about a boy who lives with lots of other boys in a Victorian workhouse.

This goes against acceptable social norms. Even worse, Oliver is an orphan. The horror of a one-parent family is terrifying enough, but he doesn't have any parents. He's a cautionary tale that should be avoided like the plague (and that plague business left behind a lot of one-parent families too, so take that one off the history syllabus).

And on top of everything else, he was always filthy. We're trying to teach kids to wash their hands and always flush the toilet - we've got fines and everything - and here's a parentless boy stuck with other boys with appalling sanitary habits.

Replace all copies of Oliver Twist with A Christmas Carol. Ebenezer Scrooge is utterly intolerant of other peoples' needs, hopes and desires; a fine role model with impeccable standards of personal hygiene.

Harry Potter

Harry Potter ticks all the wrong boxes so spectacularly, it's truly a wonder we're not throwing JK Rowling's books onto a huge bonfire at Speakers' Corner, locking arms in a circle and singing: "Fire, I'll teach you to burn. Fire, I'll teach you to learn."

Potter is an orphan, which hardly makes him a poster boy for the next Family Fun Day at your local shopping mall.

He studies wizardry, which will never get him a proper job. He doesn't even take a minor course in business administration, just to play safe.

If he's going to take a pointless course like wizardry, he might as well go the whole hog and do an arts degree.

He's always being followed by the really pretty girl and yet spends far too much time hanging out with that ginger kid.

And, most worryingly of all, J K Rowling admitted that Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts no less, was gay. That's just a pop culture step too far. He's a role model for little orphan Harry and prominent throughout the books. We should rename the titles.

Something like "Harry Potter and the Half-Gay Headmaster". The plot involves a 'confused' Dumbledore, but Potter corrects him, saves him, finds his own parents, gets rid of the ginger kid and they all get married in a sequel called "Harry Potter and the Order of the Social Norms."

Abbie Rose And The Magic Suitcase

Abbie Rose's mother is never seen. It's essentially a one-parent story. It's not the social norm.

And there are penguins. There are so many penguins with non-specific genders. These books were written by me. Ban them. Ban them all!

Ah Boys To Ah Men novelisation

Young, randy men dress up in uniforms. They often wear striped make-up on their faces. They all sleep together in one room.

They are always making strange references about polishing their equipment and sleeping with loaded weapons. And this is some sort of government-sponsored initiative? We are actively promoting this kind of all-male behaviour?

I'm about to rupture a spleen here. At least change the title to Ah Boys To Ah Men Who All Slept In Separate Bunks And Have Normal Families At Home, With Women And Everything.

We've got to think about the children. I believe the children are our future… Hang on. I'll get the sick bucket.

This article was first published on July 20, 2014.
Get The New Paper for more stories.