Politicians and their ghostwriters regularly churn out books in many different well-worn genres, including memoirs, policy manifestos, and novels. Still, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s (D-NY) latest book, published in November by Grand Central Publishing after his party’s stinging losses in House, Senate, and White House elections, is a departure from what his predecessors would have written to help boost future campaigns.
That’s because The ABCs of Democracy is a children’s picture book, specifically the subset of children’s picture books that help them learn the alphabet. These books, on the whole, sell well. Yet they usually aren’t political since preliterate children have not yet been granted the franchise.
Take Dr. Seuss’s ABC as a successful example of the genre. The second of 26 alphabetical entries reads: “BIG B. little b. What begins with B? Barber baby bubbles and a bumblebee.” A later entry answers the letter question for N with “nine new neckties and a nightshirt and a nose.”
Jeffries’s guide didn’t start as a children’s book. Rather, it was a catechism of sorts for House Democrats. As the newly elected minority leader, Jeffries would give the first speech of the 118th Congress before handing the gavel over to Republicans. His brief address just after midnight on Jan. 7 thus sought to rally the sleepy opposition.
“We will never compromise our principles,” Jeffries said. “House Democrats will always put American values over autocracy, benevolence over bigotry, the Constitution over the cult, democracy over demagogues.”
Jeffries, representing the eastern Brooklyn 8th Congressional District of New York, built a head of steam as he continued alphabetically. By the time he got to “maturity over Mar-a-Lago,” the Southeast Florida headquarters of former and now incoming President Donald Trump, Democrats cheered. He finished to a chorus of cheers by Democrats and a few boos by House Republicans.
For the text of the book, Jeffries, now 54 with two adult sons, essentially stripped out the “House Democrats will always” part and printed the rest of it, one pairing at a time. There is an introduction upfront to supply historical context. The choice to move from speech to book without reworking the text produces some clangers, at least where the getting-ready-for-bed set is concerned.
This writer’s 3-year-old son was not impressed. “Um, not good,” was his verdict. The 5-year-old daughter was slightly more up on the book because she liked the pictures.
Those were supplied by Shaniya Carrington. Described on the back cover as “an African American digital illustrator from Brooklyn,” Carrington has some range and shows it off. The portraiture is mostly spot-on. Some illustrations have an Obama-era “hope” vibe. Others are more playful. The cover has a splash of cherry blossoms, with the title’s lettering on Capitol Hill steps and children playing among the letters.
Jeffries wasn’t the only national politician to experiment with children’s books around this campaign season, and it may thus be a growing trend. Former Arkansas Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee wrote the KiDS GUiDE to President Trump, extolling the virtues of the once and future president. Trump rewarded Huckabee, a two-time GOP presidential hopeful, for his support with a nomination to be America’s ambassador to Israel.
The ABCs of Democracy lies at the intersection of two different recent trends in children’s books. The first trend is new novelty children’s books that are aimed at niche markets. Permuted Press put out The ABCs of Metallica in 2019, for instance. (“J is for James / Who sings and plays rhythm guitar / His powerful voice and down-picked riffing / Helped Metallica get this far,” reads one entry, in part.)
The second trend is a greater openness to politics in mass-market children’s books. To wit, Ibram X. Kendi’s Antiracist Baby sold north of 300,000 copies. It even received an extra sales spike when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) asked then-federal Appeals Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson about it during the February 2022 Senate hearings on her successful Supreme Court nomination.
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Whether or not children will be interested in such books in great numbers is an open question. The children’s book market is one in which third parties (parents and grandparents) that are not the target audience (children) do the lion’s share of buying. However, the children must sound the book out or sit still long enough to have it read to them. That gives them the sort of veto power that goes curiously unmentioned in The ABCs of Democracy.
Jeremy Lott is the author of Growlilocks and the Three Humans and other children’s books.