Children's author says his faith-based books are a way to fight the culture war: 'Kids are on the frontline'
Anthony DeStefano is a bestselling author renowned for his Christian-themed books for adults and children. His books often bring Biblical stories to life through vivid, animated storytelling. His latest, "From Bread and Wine to Saints Divine," introduces children to the Eucharist—a central element of Catholic and Orthodox communion—in a way that's simple and accessible.
"If the electorate rejects wokeism, what other options does the left have? What's their most effective strategy? It's to go after the kids," DeStefano told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.
"It's true that American voters have rejected the physical mutilation of children's bodies through puberty blockers, sex hormones and irreversible gender transition surgeries," DeStefano said. "But they also must recognize that the woke left, through the entertainment industry, is just as determined to mutilate the minds and souls of children through ideological propaganda. That's a tough statement, but it's true. Wokeness is not just about mutilating children's bodies. It's about mutilating children's souls."
DeStefano's works have been published in 18 countries and translated into 12 languages. For him, the path to becoming a children's book author wasn't so clear-cut from the start.
A native New Yorker, he attended Manhattan's prestigious Stuyvesant High School, known for its rigorous academics programs—and where he met his English teacher. That teacher, Frank McCourt, won the Pulitzer Prize for his memoir "Angela's Ashes," later adapted into a film.
McCourt's influence on DeStefano was immediate.
"He assigned us to write children's books," DeStefano recalled. "He wanted to force us to stop writing elaborately, as teenagers often do."
"I had always wanted to be a doctor," he said. "A surgeon, to be exact."
Yet, obstacles like organic chemistry and integral calculus led him to reassess his goals, he joked.
In his mid-to-late twenties, DeStefano's life took a turn in another direction, though. He found a deep connection to the Catholic faith, influenced by the writings of C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton, which led him back to writing.
"I thought, 'Ah, maybe, maybe there's a way to combine both these great desires to be a writer and to be a doctor.' Maybe what God really wants me to do is to be a healer of some kind, but to heal people, not with surgery, but through my writing," he said.
"That's the genesis of my whole writing career, and writing simply," DeStefano said. "And then, of course, as I got older, and I recognized more and more that there was a culture war going on, I realized that children represented the front lines in that cultural war. And so I thought to myself, if I could write books that help instill timeless traditional values at an age when kids are still open, curious and impressionable, then I would be doing something meaningful to counterbalance the secular messages that bombard them from the legacy media and the entertainment world."
In 2018, DeStefano deviated from writing children's books and wrote "Inside the Atheist Mind: Unmasking the Religion of Those Who Say There Is No God," which immediately drew criticism and negative reviews online.
Of that experience, he said, "it was exhilarating," adding that "if you're attacked by the secular culture, then that means you're doing your job." For DeStefano, restoring "objective truth" of family values and faith to the current social landscape is one of the keys to reject "moral relativism" prevalent in the culture today.
"Now, Easter is the celebration of the resurrection, and that's the ultimate proof that light conquers darkness," he said. "The same power that rolled away the stone on Easter morning is available to us as we push back against the lies that are being fed to us."
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