Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive the Bus

The book "Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive the Bus" (2003) is a bestselling second-person narrative in which readers are asked (instructed) to keep a small bird from his chosen pastime of driving a bus. The reader is not given a choice as to whether to carry out this mandate, nor provided with the reasoning behind it. One is simply taken step-by-step through the process of forbidding the pigeon, and at each juncture expected to internalize the logic of her commanders. The book has become a successful ideological tool in the manufacture of obedience. Disguised beneath upbeat imagery and seemingly benign intent, the book’s ultimate function is to turn children dim-witted and servile, perfect prey for the despots and demagogues of their generation. Yet things need not be this way. Don’t Let the Pigeon Question the Rules is a parodic work, designed to expose the original Pigeon books for what they are: thinly veiled indoctrination in the authoritarian mindset. Applying the principle of civil disobedience, as practiced by Thoreau, Dr. King, and Gandhi, Don’t Let The Pigeon Question The Rules is a humane alternative to the bleak proceduralist vision of Mo Willems’s bestselling totalitarian classics. It presents a world in which freedom and reason can peaceably coexist.