12 June 27th-July 3rd, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | entrepreneurship and the division of labor. But others more explicitly espouse anti- government, libertarian ideals. “The Tuttle Twins Learn About The Law,” written for elementary school students, demonizes social safety net programs alongside cartoon drawings. “Everyone wants to take instead of give. Some people stop working hard and begin looking to the government to take care of them instead,” the book reads. “When this happens, the government begins to control everything.” In “The Tuttle Twins and the Search for Atlas,” children are treated to a circus-set retelling of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” The book “The Tuttle Twins Guide to True Conspiracies,” aimed at middle and high school readers, contains a chapter about Hunter Biden’s laptop amid chapters on actual conspiracies, such as the Tuskegee Experiment and COINTELPRO. The realities of the laptop controversy — which sprung up just before the 2020 elec- tion of Biden’s father, President Joe Biden — have not lived up to its Republican- generated hype, though it did play a role in Hunter Biden’s recent gun-related convictions. Unsurprisingly, both the author and illustrator behind the Tuttle Twins books seem to be conspiracy-minded. Boyack, the series’ author, wrote a November 2023 op-ed about Biden’s laptop in which he conveyed his convictions that 51 former U.S. intelligence officials, including the acting CIA director, misled the public about it to sway the 2020 election. The actual evidence was less than compelling, per the Washington Post. Last week, the series’ official Instagram account promoted “The Tuttle Twins Guide to Modern Villains” — featuring chapters on Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Kim Il-Sung and Robert Mugabe, among others — with a post about former National Institutes of Health director Anthony Fauci. In a recent essay on the series’ website, illustrator Elijah Stanfield claimed that the felony convictions of former President Donald Trump were “so blatantly orchestrated by elements in Washington, D.C., nobody can say other- wise and keep a straight face.” “Meanwhile,” the post continued, “politi- cians in both parties are working overtime to bleed us and sell us out to globalist powers via climate change, social justice, pandemic responses, and their favorite — war.” A nationwide trend Including the Tuttle Twins books in Scottsdale school libraries is the latest example of a nationwide swing to the right in public education. Since the start of the pandemic, during which time school closures had an undeni- ably deleterious effect on learning, vocal groups of conservative parents have orga- nized against supposed wokeness in class- rooms. They’ve pulled books about race, sex and gender from school libraries and helped to elect anti-woke conservatives to public school roles — including Arizona Superintendent of Schools Tom Horne and Scottsdale school board members Amy Carney and Carine Werner. If the three other members of the SUSD board had any concerns about placing the books in libraries, they haven’t said. Board members Zach Lindsay, Libby Hart- Wells and Julie Cieniawski each voted to accept the books as part of the board’s consent agenda at its April 9 meeting. Phoenix New Times reached out to all three for comment but did not receive a response. According to the Arizona Daily Independent, a full set of Tuttle Twins books was donated to each school library. But if parents prefer to do the teaching themselves, there’s a Tuttle Twins book just for them. Titled “Subtle Ways Your Kids Are Taught to Embrace Socialism,” it offers a stirringly patriotic defense of the rapidly growing wealth divide in the United States. “Rather than aspiring to be rich, young Americans are taught to view the wealthy as selfish oppressors,” it reads. “Teaching children to be jealous of others’ wealth encourages an openness to supporting policies that take from the ‘haves’ and give to the ‘have-nots’ — the essential founda- tion of socialist policies.” Dubious Donation from p 11 An image in “The Tuttle Twins Learn About the Law.” In the book, a character gives the twins “The Law” by Frédéric Bastiat and says people on government assistance “want to take instead of give.” (Screenshot via Scribd)