Ever since Ethan first starting getting books from family or garage sales or from the store, I've always made a point to preview them before he read/heard them to make sure I agreed with the content. I never really came across anything too concerning other than a few "magic" ones I knew I would have to explain as he got older. So I relaxed.
Ethan loves Curious George and I've always let him watch the cartoon. I've always agreed with the lessons taught and it wasn't nearly as annoying as some other cartoons we've come across. He's even got a Curious George stuffed animal he sleeps with. We're fans of the monkey, what can I say. So when he got a few Curious George books I didn't think twice about reviewing them.
You can imagine my surprise when my mother called me over while reading a new one to Ethan saying "I can't read this.." Huh? Now my mother and I usually don't see eye to eye on anything so I immediately jumped to the conclusion it was something stupid that she was blowing out of proportion. So I read the sentence she was pointing to - "He (referring to Curious George) was so ashamed he wished he were dead.."...yeah, you read that right.
Now, maybe you don't think that's a big deal. And perhaps it isn't for a book a teenager might read. But CURIOUS GEORGE?? These are geared for preschoolers. How do I explain to a preschooler about being so embarrassed he might want to die when they barely understand the concept of death?!? I couldn't believe it and I was furious. The fact that the author was so ignorant to think that was a ordinary statement to make in a kids book blew me away. We came up with an alternative sentence and after she finished reading it, I got rid of it. Want to make sure you don't buy it? It's called Curious George gets a medal. Back to previewing all the books, I thought.
It didn't take long before I came across quite possibly the dumbest book I've ever seen in print. The book is called, "It's not Fair" by some company called Rigby Tadpoles. The book is geared towards beginner readers and is only 8 pages long.
My initial thought was that of course, this was going to have a brief lesson about why some things aren't fair in life or perhaps how to compromise if a kid doesn't get their way. NOT EVEN CLOSE. Because of it's short nature and the fact each page only consists of two sentences, I'm going to quote the book to you. I want to know what you think. This is directly from the book:
Mandy's calling me names. It's not fair! (picture is shown of Mandy yelling "fatso", "shorty", "big nose", etc..)
Tony's spoiling my games. It's not fair! (picture of a boy kicking the girl's train across the room)
Karen's eating my chips. It's not fair! (picture of girl stealing boys potato chip bag)
Peter's sinking my ships. It's not fair! (picture of boy pushing boat under water with evil grin)
Mandy's pinching my arm. It's not fair! (picture of girl pinching the boy who's crying hysterically as she grins)
Tony's wrecking my farm. It's not fair! (picture of boy dumping farm on the ground)
And the last page? You ready for this?!?
You kids are driving me mad. It's not fair!
Um..not exactly the ending I was thinking. Absolutely no value in this story whatsoever. I was flabbergasted. What publisher agreed to put this in print? Who in their right mind would give this to a child? Do you agree this was a total waste of someone's money?
And then last week Walmart announced they were removing a CD from their shelves that was made for children, pictured children and balloons on the front and yet the lyrics contained profanity. How many parents do you think never even listened to those cd's and let their children hear that crap for hours..perhaps they are still listening to it?
Folks, if I have any advice for you today, make sure you know what your kids are looking at, what they're watching, what they're hearing and ultimately what they're learning. You can't rely on anyone else for this important responsibility.
3 comments:
Some of those older books are so ridiculous. I'm sad to hear about that line in CG. We have a few treasuries but that story is not in them.
i'm still reeling about that curious george book. i expect some of the "oldies" to not be PC... but that's nothing to do with being PC and just a terrible figure of speech to use for a children's book! no doubt that we need to filter... no one else is going to do it for us, right??! it DOES rile me up though to see some of the crap that's targeted/marketed toward children... doesn't make our job as parents any easier, that's for sure!!
We have that Curious George!!! I don't think they've re-released it into the latest of the thin little paperbacks, right? All I remember is my Husband and I reading to the kids and he got to that line and stopped. It was the first time we'd read it to them, but it was mine as a child. He looked at me and asked, "Do I really have to read that line?"
We are avid readers in our house, but yes, some books need some serious proofreading.
BTW, write more!
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