As a children’s book author and a father of two demanding boys, I read a lot of picture books. As so many parents know, I also read a small number of picture books a great number of times (seriously, who the hell cares what Brown Bear sees?)

Children’s books, like literature in general, can be bent toward various ends. Some, like The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats’s 1962 classic, or Adelaide by Tomi Ungerer, are beautiful stories. Others, like Jon Klassen’s We Found a Hat or Adam Rubin’s Dragons Love Tacos, are just fun to read. There’s another genre, though, I might call “message books” which get a little dicey.

Morals and morality in children’s books are a tricky thing. Bearing in mind the impressionability of a sleepy child’s psyche and the position of power the reader holds, often it borders on creepy indoctrination. Sometimes, when you agree with the message or it is subtly conveyed – as in the case with the atheist parable Me and Dog or anything by Chris Haughton – that’s exactly what you want. Sometimes, as with the creepy stalky mother in The Runaway Bunny, you can see the therapy bills piling up in the future.

But in the case of the new book Give Please a Chance by Bill O’Reilly and the novelist James Patterson, you can agree the message and still find the thing risible.

The book seems, on its face, to be a relatively benign imploration towards politeness. A little girl holds up a empty plate. Her face is covered in frosting, evidently from the first serving of a birthday cake. “Can I have seconds? Please?” she asks. In another, a boy attempts to close his jacket. “Zip me up! Please?”

There are 23 of these instances, each in which a dependent is asking either for permission or for help. The message is help shall be given and permission more likely granted if the request is accompanied by the word “please”.

“James and I believe we can bring that civility and compassion back into the world,” O’Reilly writes in a preface, “Let’s start today with our children, by encouraging them to always say that wonderful, magical word: please.”

But perhaps we should pause for a moment and consider who it is demanding the word please be used – and what might be the architecture of power behind the demand for politeness.

Bill O’Reilly is one of the country’s most uncivil hosts, one whose anger-contorted face has berated America nightly on his show The O’Reilly Factor since 1996. Anyone doubting his toxicity need only Google “Bill O’Reilly freakout” for evidence of his temperament. And anyone curious as to whether he follows his own advice would do well to count how many times he says the word please on his show The O’Reilly Factor. Hint: he doesn’t.

What’s latent in the pages of Give Please A Chance isn’t politesse. It’s a societal framework where those who have less power are forced to beg from those who do. How perfectly appropriate, one thinks, that O’Reilly has written a children’s book. It makes manifest and clear how it is he views the rightful place of Americans outside his constituency. He is the father, they his children.

This revanchist demand for decorum is always most keenly felt among those trying to cement themselves in power. As O’Reilly writes in the forward, “Believe it or not, once upon a time, James and I were both kids. Life was much easier in those days because there were rules most Americans followed.” For men like O’Reilly and Patterson, both in their 60s, perhaps life was much easier when there were rules most Americans followed. But for millions of women and minorities, for those suffering under segregation and discrimination, for the many who do not look like O’Reilly and Patterson, I’m willing to bet life wasn’t. And I’m not sure saying please would help.

The logic on which O’Reilly’s view rests implies that the demands being made don’t constitute rights but rather privileges, favors to be asked on bended knee.

This is reminiscent of Donald Trump’s Twitter tantrum over the cast of Hamilton who, quite respectfully, asked Vice-President elect Mike Pence to represent them in the White House. They didn’t say please but they did say sir. Trump called them rude and demanded an apology. Then there’s O’Reilly himself on Colin Kaepernick, the NFL quarterback who refuses to stand for the Star Spangled Banner: “If Colin Kaepernick were on this program ... he’d be sacked within seconds.”

The host’s perverse insistence on old-fashioned values extends to his treatment of women. When asked about his fellow Fox host Megyn Kelly’s memoir, in which she writes of her experience of alleged sexual abuse at the hands of Roger Ailes, O’Reilly – ironically in an appearance promoting Give Please A Chance – had this to say: “I’m not interested in basically litigating something that is finished that makes my network look bad, OK? ... I’m not going to even bother with it. I’ve got a country that’s in a political transition. I’ve got a kids’ book that I want millions of kids to look at. That’s what I’m interested in, not making my network look bad.”

Later, on his own show, he clarified his disgust at Kelly’s audacity to speak up. “So here’s the deal. If somebody is paying you a wage, you owe that person or company allegiance. If you don’t like what’s happening in the workplace, go to human resources or leave. I’ve done that ... Factor tip of the day: loyalty is good.”

Protest, in the eyes of men like Trump and O’Reilly, is acceptable only when it disturbs no one and changes nothing. It isn’t too hard to imagine a page in the book for “Black Lives Matter, Please?” or “Women Demand Respect at Work, Please?”

It would never occur to him that these are not things one asks for, but that one demands. The correct protest isn’t polite or pretty, but uncomfortable and raw. And who cares if a voice is loud and rude if it is also right and just?

In the canon of children’s literature, there are many worthwhile books to choose from, many stories to tell and lessons to impart. But when it comes to Give Please A Chance, in this case, don’t.