Former White House spokesman and Newsmax host Sean Spicer has had a lot of experience with fake news, first working with the inventor of the term and then defending former President Donald Trump against a lot of it.
Spicer could even be considered an expert on the issue.
So when the talk of writing another book popped up, Spicer said it would be great to do something in the fight against fake news and the problem of people falling for it.
And he wanted to write a children’s book.
The result is the latest in the popular Brave Books series The Parrots Go Bananas, his well-told story for 4- to 12-year-olds about a false story nearly ruining a unifying event before it was called out.
“It’s an audience that gets served up a lot of adult material in overt ways, and I thought it would be kind of nice, it’d be fun to do something to counter that,” said Spicer.
Using Brave’s model and characters based on “Freedom Island,” Spicer knit his own story about a hero’s ending in a baseball-styled game that sours when critics of the stars post negative and false comments and pictures on to a social media platform much like YouTube.
“You cheaters,” heroes “Bongo” and “Asher” heard to their horror and surprise. The truth eventually came out, and the haters were sent packing. “The crowd had jumped to so many conclusions,” wrote Spicer. Asher said, “Doing the right thing has never been easy.”
Illustrated in an eye-popping Disney-esque style and carrying a light Christian touch, it includes lessons at the end to drive home the message from Brave Books and Spicer, who wrote: “Fake news is found in much of our world today whether it be on television, social media, articles, or even what people are saying. When we encounter information on any platform, we need to be mindful of what we believe or think right away.”
In writing the book, Spicer had a lot of examples to pull from. He cited the effort to correct a Time story that falsely accused Trump of throwing the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. out of the Oval Office as a prime example.
He also had a lot of help in the collaborative effort from his two children, who would often question some of the phrasing or illustrations.
“Having a bunch of older people trying to figure out what kids want isn’t always the easiest thing, so it was nice having a real sounding board that I could literally ask, ‘Does this work for you?” said Spicer.
He hopes readers find it a fun story to follow. “If you flip through it, it’s not like it’s mean-spirited. It doesn’t call out the media or try to make anyone seem like a bad guy. It teaches a very valuable lesson,” he said, adding that “there are some adults, especially in Washington, who could benefit from reading this.”
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For Spicer, it checks a box he always wanted to fill, though it is unclear if he will pen another children’s book.
“Think about the last five years. I never thought I’d write a book, and I’m now writing my fourth book. I was told that I never would do reality dancing television. So I did that. I never thought I’d have my own TV show. I did that. The beauty of what’s going on now is not to say never. It’s just to kind of embrace each opportunity,” said Spicer.
“There are days when I pinch myself,” he added.
