Is it an attention-grabbing publicity stunt, or an effort to educate kids about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the decade of fighting that followed?
The publisher of a new children’s coloring book, called “We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids’ Book of Freedom,” says it is the latter. Really Big Coloring Books Inc. publisher Wayne Bell says the book is intended to be educational.
“It’s really designed for older kids, not preschoolers,” said Bell in a phone interview. “It’s designed to be a teaching and learning tool for parents and teachers to use with their children.”
But will military parents, many of whom have endured lives of repeated deployments in the aftermath of Sept. 11, see it that way?
The coloring book includes pages showing the smoking World Trade Center and mourning survivors. Page 19 depicts a Navy SEAL taking aim at Osama bin Laden, who is seen cowering behind a veiled woman as a bullet leaves the barrel of the SEAL’s rifle. Above the drawing is this message: “Children, the truth is, these terrorist acts were done by freedom-hating Islamic Muslim extremists. These crazy people hate the American way of life because we are FREE and our society is FREE.”
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