Controversial ISIS Coloring Book Reaches Vestavia Home
Really Big Coloring Books, which credits itself with starting the adult coloring book craze, has come out with a new and controversial one titled “ISIS: A Culture of Evil.” The company sent thousands unsolicited around the country, and one ended up in a Muslim household in Vestavia Hills.
Henna Budhwani had just gotten home from work and was going through the mail when she found a manilla envelope. “I opened this up and I was horrified. Initially it took a minute to even register what I was looking at because it was a coloring book, but it felt anti-Islamic. It talked about anti-ISIS. It had a parental warning on it,” she says.
The cover shows a beheading, and there’s more graphic violence inside. Budhwani is Muslim, and she panicked. “I felt genuinely targeted,” she says.” I thought that someone had pulled my name from a database and said you’re a Muslim living in Alabama, and we want you out.”
But it turns out that the public-health researcher was on the company’s mailing list because several years ago, she worked on a related activity book that the company published.
Publisher Wayne Bell says there’s no reason for Muslims to take offense: “This is a pro-Islam book. There’s no doubt about it.” He says it’s part of a series including “We Shall Never Forget 9/11” and “The True Faces of Evil Global Terrorism.”
He says a lot of people “enjoy the fact that we’re not afraid to boldly go where a lot of publishers will not go.”
The company has also published titles like “Being Gay is Okay,” and books about dinosaurs and trains. Bell says the ISIS book is meant for adults. It includes a section saying that most Muslims don’t support ISIS. In addition to people like Budhwani, the book has been sent to hundreds of churches, synagogues and mosques.
Iran’s top officials condemn U.S. strikes and assert their right to self-defense
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the American operation an "outrageous, grave and unprecedented violation" of the United Nations Charter and international law.
FedEx founder Fred Smith, who revolutionized package delivery, dies at 80
Smith once said he came up with the name Federal Express because he wanted the company to sound big and important when in fact it was a start-up operation with a future far from assured.
In this rural Colorado valley, cuts to Medicaid would have vast ripple effects
Cuts to Medicaid moving through Congress would shake up health care in the scenic San Luis Valley — with negative downstream effects on local jobs, businesses and education.
What separates the ultrarich from the just-plain-rich? The gigayacht.
A new collection of essays by New Yorker writer Evan Osnos, The Haves and Have-Yachts, provides rich research and material for the conversation about extreme wealth in America today.
LA Dodgers pledge $1 million in support of immigrants amid ICE raids
The pledge comes amid ongoing federal immigration raids targeting migrants in the area, and calls from the Dodgers' fanbase for the organization to speak out against them.
This abortion method doesn’t involve doctors — and many of them consider it safe
A growing body of research demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of self-managed abortion with pills, coupled with the global pandemic in 2020 and the fall of Roe in 2022, has many U.S. doctors changing their views.
