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Greg Johnson: How did you come up with the idea for this book?
Spencer Quinn: I had just started writing for Counter-Currents in 2016, and I was kicking around for novel ways to get our message across. At that time most of us were on social media, and so after a few months I felt fairly certain that the idea of a Dissident Right children’s book wasn’t being widely discussed. I then went into a Barnes and Noble to investigate how political and “woke” children’s books have become, because I had a feeling it was pretty bad. My suspicions proved correct. Along with the politically correct sermonizing one would expect in this kind of literature, some books actively encouraged non-white identity. In some cases, this was a somewhat hostile identity. I remember one board book in which a black toddler raises his fist in a black power salute.
I thought, “Yeah, we gotta come up with an answer to this.”
Fortunately, Greg Johnson liked the idea and encouraged me to come up with a story, which I did. He put me in touch with Anthony Coulter, and the rest is history.
What is the basic message you want readers to take away?
Well, one could say it’s okay to be white. That’s certainly a big part of it. But My Mirror Tells a Story delves back into time to instill not just a racial identity among white children, but racial pride as well. The book delivers a sense of the sheer magnitude of white history and how the modern world would be so much less without it.
The book addresses contemporary anti-white racism as it appears in a school setting. It addresses race realism as well, but gently. It does so in part by demonstrating how multiracialism leads to disorder. Essentially, I tried to coalesce Dissident Right ideas into a narrative that small children can understand.
The book certainly isn’t hidebound. It teaches white children to be kind and understanding of others while remaining proud of themselves. But it instills a sense of exclusivity among white children — a radical departure from today’s anti-white norms. This book is meant for white children only. Non-whites and even mixed-race children will get very little from it. This is by design.
I remember pondering the very nature of the book, and the idea occurred to me that we can see our own history in the mirror. We are, in fact, products of history, and we should never let the history of our people escape us. It’s a glorious history.
For those who want to read more about my thoughts on My Mirror Tells a Story and children’s literature in general, check out an article I wrote for Counter-Currents in 2018 called “Chicken Sunday for White Nationalism.”
What age group is it directed to?
Little kids, for sure. The story is told entirely in verse, with a simple ABCB rhyme scheme. It’s meant to be heard rather than read by a child. I imagine that a parent would sit a child on their lap and read it to them. So, I would say the age group for My Mirror Tells a Story falls into the two-to-five range.
Were you influenced by any other children’s books?
Perhaps. It’s hard to say. Certainly, I was motivated by the books I saw at Barnes and Noble. It seemed as if the Left has been outflanking us in this regard, and so I felt a sense of urgency. But as for influences, I have read countless books to my children, and so the very idea of a children’s book came naturally to me.
I think all great children’s books have to have an “uh-oh” moment in which there is some great intrusion upon the story. Examples include Curious George flooding the Man With the Yellow Hat’s office, or Danny realizing that the Dinosaur at the museum is talking to him, or, more recently, Karma Wilson’s Bear sneezing all over his uninvited dinner guests. My Mirror Tells a Story has a similar moment, a moment in which the parent reading the book can gasp, look at the child, and say, “uh-oh.”
Of course, My Mirror Tells a Story takes place in the real world, so this “uh-oh” moment carries a bit more weight than the above examples. I wish it didn’t have to, but with children’s books being produced by the Left today also taking place in the real world (and being given a default anti-white or pro-non-white spin), it’s not like whites have a choice. I would like to write a conservative children’s book that leaves out race and deals with more generic and implicitly pro-white values such as tradition, family, and patriotism. But whites really don’t have time for that anymore, do we?
Do you want to try your hand at young adult fiction someday?
Yes, but where’s the time? I am working on concurrent projects for grown-up books right now. I think I could find the time for more children’s books. I have two ideas I’d like to pursue. After my writing schedule clears, I do have a detective mystery kind of story I’d like to develop for young adults. Of course, there will be a racial angle. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, check out Blut and Boden and A Race for the North by Ash Donaldson (my reviews here and here). Donaldson’s got the YA fiction thing under control.
Did the illustration phase lead to any changes in the story?
Certainly. Working with Anthony was great. He made the pages dealing with inventions and the Founding Fathers really come alive — better than I had envisioned them. The boy climbing on the monkey bar dome was his idea, and I love the perspective upon the playground it provides. I gave him general instructions on the classroom scene in which the teacher teaches about slavery and oppression, and he made it sparkle.
Do you think race-conscious comics and graphic novels are a promising genre to develop?
I think so. We can’t let Vox Day hog the market on those, can we? Seriously, I could be interested in such a project. If an artist approaches me with an intriguing idea and wants a script developed I would definitely consider it. In general, however, comics are the next step, especially given how the pathetically “woke” versions of DC and Marvel have been hemorrhaging readers by the thousands. I imagine there are quite a few young men out there who would love to experience our stories in comic form.
What effect do you hope this book has?
Of course, I would like for white children to be entertained and inspired by this story. A lot of that depends on how their parents interact with it and how often they read it to them. I figure there might be many positive reactions to the book since there is literally nothing like it in the world today.
Another effect I hope My Mirror Tells a Story has is to raise the morale of young white parents. In fact, I see that as a big part of my job as a writer in general: to keep morale up among people like me. I don’t need to see tangible changes taking place in real time as a result of my writing (although that would be wonderful). If people out there feel even slightly better about themselves after having read me, or maybe even just a little bit less lonely, then I feel like I’ve done my job.
It’s no different for My Mirror Tells a Story.
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8 comments
If there is any evidence at all that America and her imperial satellite nations are purely evil, it is the fact that YOU are considered evil for writing a book that seeks only to offer small white children an antidote for all the harmful and negative propaganda they are force fed and bombarded with daily.
This country is wholly irredeemable and must be dissolved.
Several years ago, I was in the check out line in Walmart. They had a children’s book on the check out shelf. It portrayed a primitive blond white man, a caveman basically, and a primitive black African in a prehistoric setting. Both were wearing animal skins and roaming around in this wilderness. I didn’t pick it up and read it. The false propaganda and indoctrination start early.
I am pleasantly surprised that the two races were portrayed as being on the same level.
Indeed. Today, the African would be riding a magic carpet as the Flintstone gazes in awe; or perhaps Fred would be stealing the African’s wheel.
It doesn’t just seem as if the Left has outflanked us in this regard, it is that we aren’t even on the field. This book will hopefully help. I would, honestly, hesitate to buy it for my youngest child. He’s so happy and in love with life right now. My older son however is aware of what we are facing. All he gets is Rosa Parks and MLK and whatever other b.s. at school. The bloody Scholastic magazines that he has shown me are chock full of BLM shit from start to finish.
We actually have to make it our stated goal that these types of anti-white propaganda will no longer be tolerated in our society. But the First Amendment!! The Left already destroyed that. They don’t give a damn about our rights. That constitution was for us anyway (as they constantly remind us).
Way of the World was just talking about fear in his latest vid. I remember a video from The Impartial Truth called Hope Against the NWO where he mentioned that fear was the greatest weapon of our enemies. Right now our enemies have no fear of us. They should. We will never win unless they fear us. They should know that they’ll be the ones to be deplatformed and kicked out into the cold. We’ll prosecute their intellectual and financial leaders and exile the riff raff. We are the concrete and steel that holds this country together. We have truth and natural law on our side. And we have no choice at this point if we are worth anything at all.
As an aside, the last realm of media which wasn’t completely overtaken with leftism was electronic entertainment. Sony’s The Last of Us Part 2 put an end to that. It so saturated with leftist, postmodernist misery that by the end you don’t even know who the good guys are anymore. The game kicks off with the gratuitous beating to death of the old white guy that everybody liked from the first game. From there we get a hefty dose of lesbianism, a couple transsexuals, cheap digs at Christianity (when the Jewish girl knows it’s a synagogue because she didn’t burst into flames upon entering – ha ha! So clever.), and from there just more madness and needlessly merciless violence. It’s not the silly type of violence from Mortal Kombat or Wolfenstein or Doom. The game is an exercise on how to hate yourself and humanity.
When you mentioned ‘Curious George’, I thought back to the few times I had watched a portion of the program, when flipping channels during the day to an NPR station. I felt an inner observation — Curious George, to me, represents a charming portrayal of Blacks, while the little Dachshund in the house, which is sort of George’s foil, represents the White reaction to Blacks. Doxies are almost always owned (and adored) by White people; I’ve had two myself (and wish I had one now, but am prevented by my lease). Doxies are German dogs, that tells you something right there — and are very protective of their owners. So, without having any real or extensive viewing of the entire program, day by day, I can’t make any further assessment of my immediate reaction to this little show. Yes, it’s cute, as it is meant to be, and that is its purpose, to sneak non-white racial attitudes in under the radar. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Children’s books are fun to think about. I myself had the idea of “bears in town,” where a naive boy invites a bear into his village, which then proceeds to make a mess of things, shitting on the streets, breaking into stores to eat all the fish and honey, getting in fights with the local pets. Eventually the town forms a committee that decides the bear has to leave again, in a forceful yet amicable way. The bear and the boy say goodbye, the message being “bears belong in the woods” as in “everything has its place,” indicating the chaos that occurs when something is out of place.
But ideas like these might be too allegorical, indeed as Quinn says: “whites really don’t have time for that anymore, do we?” Besides I have a feeling that writing white-woke children’s books might be putting the cart before the horse in the culture war, but who knows. We can’t wait for the ideal circumstances to start pushing the agenda.
That actually sounds like a pretty fine idea to me. I’m in favor of trying new strategies, everyone doing what they can, taking initiative, and all that. Instead of putting all our eggs in one basket with one strategy, we should go with whatever works and run with it. Lastly, if I felt we didn’t have time to do anything, I wouldn’t be writing here.
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