Recently I've begun packing up the nursery, getting it ready to be moved. The first things to be moved were the babies' books, which now rest in the study. With huge, huge thanks to people who sent us books, my folks, an ebay compulsion, and The Book People (I think their books fall off the back of trucks which my morals are flexibile enough to be ok with), the babies' reading material has been really beefed up.

The books are currently not arranged or alphabetized. Do you have any idea how twitchy that makes me?

Anyway, both Nick and Nora like to be read to. They like book after book after book, although their threshold for books has no leeway - they're on your lap being read to, they're happy, they're happy, they're happy, STOP READING IMMEDIATELY. My children - already masters of what they tolerate and don't tolerate.

The thing you don't realize about children's books until you start reading them - this because your memories of your childhood books are wonderful treasured things coated with sticky strawberry jam and Pixie Stix dust - is just how fucked up some of these books really are.

No really.

Occasionally I'll be reading one of these and thinking: What the hell is this all about? And what profound psychological impacts will this have on the kids? To which the babies rubbish me and say "Seriously, Mom, you're way overthinking again. Now turn the page before I get screamy."

I'll give you some examples.

**********************************************

Aliens Love Underpants.

I love aliens. I love underpants. It stands to reason that this book would be right up my alley, so I bought this one. It has cheerful, bright illustrations. The aliens are all friends. The aliens are all happy.

The aliens also come to Earth and steal our foundation garments. The bad news is grandmas are apparently stuck back in the 1920's, and their bloomers are considered big fun for those aliens with slightly transvestite preferences. The other bad news is apparently "Mummies wear pink frilly things", so I need to hide my period-time granny panties from the babies as they grow up, so as not to disabuse them of the notion that mummies spend their time prancing around in peachy underthings.

The aliens take our knickers off the washing line and prance around in them at night before hanging them back up on the line in the morning. Let's hope they don't leave skidmarks.

**********************************************

Dogs Don't Wear Sneakers.

Maybe they don't, but fish sure as shit are cannibals.

Those would be fish enjoying a little lox on their bagels while wearing the very same fishing hats they wore while reeling in their Cousin Bob.

**********************************************

In the Night Kitchen.

This one - sent by the lovely Aunties CTG and ZTZCheese, is a classic. Seriously. Sendak need not bow to anyone. But I do have a hard time reading this page and keeping a straight face:

It must be because I can't get past the milk jug on the kid's head.

Yeah, that's it.

I hope Nick doesn't get a complex from looking at this page and sizing up his own milk jug.

**********************************************

Varmints.

Varmints is an amazing book. The illustrations are stunning, the message incredible, and I want absolutely every book that this author and the illustrator collaborate on. But I do wonder a bit if this book is aimed more for adults than kids.

Those two pages read: "It touched and warmed the hearts of those few who paused and cared to listen..../Then one day OTHERS came, and the sound of bees was lost."

The OTHERS? Ben, is that you?

Then you come to these pages:

Those white dots on the left hand page? Those would be the creepy faces of the OTHERS. I can see this is one book the babies may read when they're older, lest I have to bunk down on the floor with them and assure them that the OTHERS are not, in actuality, under the bed waiting for the babeis to fall asleep so they can steal their souls and trade them for some red crayolas.

**********************************************

Love You Forever.

A classic. Absolute classic. A beautiful, tear-inducing book that makes me choke up every damn time I read it. I love it, it's a book about a mother who says the same poem again and again to her son as he grows up (and naturally I've plagiarized the poem and say it to my son).

What I don't love is this:

The mother takes a bus across town, lets herself into her adult son's house, and whispers the poem into his ear before leaving again.

What. The. Fuck.

"Hey, kids! We love having you, and when you grow up someday we'll stalk you to constantly remind you of how much we love you! Better not bring home the ladies and try for some action, m'kay? Wouldn't want to blow your dear old mom's ticker out, would we?"

**********************************************

Finally, there's this one:

My folks brought it over as part of a lot of 75 Dr. Seuss books they won on Craigslist for me. I love all the books, and I especially love that the books are old and well-used, because to me that makes them more special. But I don't love this one. Why? Well, since it was written in 1959 it pretty much takes all the major political incorrect issues, urinates on them, sticks a funny hat on them, and buys them all a pint.

I give you the middle of the book:

Why yes, that does say "There are many Indiands here. One of the Indians looks after the plane." Presumably thie author intended the Indian to take care of the White Man's plane after the Indian was done hunting heap big buffalo and smoking peace pipe with Runs Like the Wind. Perhaps the author felt the need to call him an Indian and dress him up in the latest of Wild West schmaltz to make a point, although what that point is I cannot possibly imagine. I've been around a lot of Native Americans in my archaeology days, but not once were any of them dressed like that. I have however encountered a number of stupid white people who dressed like that in some nonsensical attempt to impersonate a Native American, so maybe the author meant to say "substitute Indian".

My real issue with Ann Can Fly though comes from the part where Ann squeals and hopes other girls can see her and maybe they'll be in an airplane someday, too! Isn't that exciting! People with vaginas are allowed up in the air! Ann can fly even though she's a girl! I mean, you couldn't have a book called Dan Can Fly because Dan is a Man. Man Dan can fly already. Man Dan uses his huge stonking penis to control the throttle, propping up his giant tree trunk man thighs on the dashboard while making jokes about the stock market and reading a map without having to land at a gas station and ask directions. But Ann, well, Ann's a little useless. Ann's just a girl. Flying is hard, Barbie.

If I read this one to the babies I'm going to explain that Ann's stupidity was due to her being dropped on her head as a baby and not due to her having two X chromosomes. Girl's can not only fly, but we'd never bump the plane while parking it.

-H.

PS-Lily, are you here? How do you pronounce that word "pech" that you and Clancy mentioned yesterday? That's my new word.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 09:21 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment
Post contains 1275 words, total size 9 kb.

1 Brilliant reviews Helen! You made me snort in my coffee! I love buying books for my niece, although I'm not sure she actually gets them read to her if I'm not doing it. If you ever need an alternative career, you should take book reviewing!!

Posted by: Suzie at May 01, 2008 10:00 AM (weSjv)

2 Hiho Helen, I'm here.. Pech... You can listen to someone saying it, on beolingus.de (a translation-website). Look for Deutsch>Englisch, and fill in "Pech", then click on "suchen". Or else: The "e" is similar to french "pêche" For the "ch", imagine a sound a kind of hard, hissing "y" like in "young". If you know how to pronounce the "ch" in "Ich": That's the same... Enjoy :-) Lily Some children's books are nursery crimes. (lame joke, but true)

Posted by: Lily at May 01, 2008 10:21 AM (Y8m4l)

3 And "pêche" is written with a circonflexe, not with a c-cedille. But my keyboard seems to have some issues...

Posted by: Lily at May 01, 2008 10:55 AM (qrvLc)

4 What? They're letting girls fly planes now? Sheesh!! Next you'll try to tell me they can be doctors, lawyers, or telecom executives!

Posted by: ~Easy at May 01, 2008 11:37 AM (XD24A)

5 The Night Kitchen is like one giant acid trip and I've never even DONE acid. That's probably the most fucked up one I've ever read. And Love You Forever, your pictures are different, but yes, I would never climb up a ladder to my adult son's bedroom to rock him to sleep. Maybe. And let's not talk about the one upper father who does everything better than his son in Guess How Much I Love You. I bought one book for the Mini Skippy Jon Jones and the Big Bones. It's so mental, my ADD brain cannot wrap itself around this story because it's that bad. Seriously.

Posted by: statia at May 01, 2008 12:01 PM (5IjqH)

6 Greetings from sunny Florida. I saw your page listed on shape of a mother, and have become a loyal reader. Thank you for sharing all of your interesting stories! I could not help but to comment since I have been going through the same thoughts with children's books. I also found Love You Forever to be very creepy. Not only is mom holding the grown man creepy, but son cradling his elderly mother gave me the creeps. When my daughter was born I was given the book and just could not keeping it... Recently I pulled out my "golden books" from the late 70's early 80's to read to my 2 year old and they were a lot like Ann Can Fly. I wonder what people will think of the books being printed these days in 20 years. Amy

Posted by: Amy at May 01, 2008 12:16 PM (z0hrW)

7 I'm showing my young age here, but my mom read me I'll Love You Forever, too. We're both creeped out by it now.

Posted by: Marian at May 01, 2008 01:12 PM (ZD4nv)

8 My kids both loved In the Night Kitchen, and recently when I was reading it to my 20 mo. old nephew Veronica says to me "I always liked that story, but it is creepy that he has to be naked-really creepy." Love You Forever is a touching book, but that mom must be like the mother-in-law from hell. Sneaking into your grown son's room to kiss him and hold him? Uhhhhhh-no. In my new venture of trying to put a positive spin on things, whenever I would come across a book like Ann Can Fly, I would tell my children things used to be very different, and fortunately we are at least trying (some of us at the very least) to become better as a society. It does offer up a good chance in a postitive way to bring up some serious issues, without being serious or your kids really knowing that they are learning something. Cause I like to be sneaky like that.

Posted by: Teresa at May 01, 2008 01:47 PM (h+RpU)

9 Lily got it. Soft 'e' - like the way you would pronounce 'Pez' (but without the 'z') and with a Dr. Evil 'Shh' on the end. And thanks for the validation Lily! For me, it's just one of those words that comes to mind often, but has no eqivalent so it just gets stuck there.

Posted by: Clancy at May 01, 2008 01:51 PM (X+xFB)

10 I've thought about children's books like this for a long time... freaks me out what gets published. I guess I'd look at it as a chance to open discussions with them when they're older, too. Could be interesting to see how they are actually thinking about the stories. Then again, I am a fan of mysteries and horror, so what do I know about children's books?

Posted by: sue at May 01, 2008 02:13 PM (WbfZD)

11 Exactly! I have started cherry picking which nursery rhymes I'll read our little one out of her Mother Goose book, because some of them are just TOO creepy!

Posted by: joy at May 01, 2008 03:02 PM (veojC)

12 Not just the books either - Disney has some very un-PC movies we all know and loveÂ… Do you think today that Cruella DeVille would be allowed to smoke as much as she does in 101? And what exactly would be the full name to Snow White and the 7 little people?

Posted by: Clancy at May 01, 2008 03:12 PM (X+xFB)

13 Your book collection has grown! And, omg, you had me rolling with laughter.

Posted by: Andria at May 01, 2008 03:33 PM (Oo4k1)

14 Ha! Those are hilarious! You should watch the "future careers" segments that were on the old Mickey Mouse Club show. The first one was "Airline Pilot/Stewardess." The boy flies the airplanes and the girl practices leaning over without sticking her butt into the air.

Posted by: Jen at May 01, 2008 03:48 PM (FYm8s)

15 OK, I swear the next time I pee my pants reading your blog, I'm sending the dirty laundry your way. I don't know which made me laugh harder, Ann Can Fly and the comments about the penis flying the plane (maybe they can try out Tommy Lee of Motley Crue as a pilot), or Cockle-Doodle-Doo. Yeah, kid, some jug you've got there. I tend to forget that Over There people are a little less uptight about such things. I can't wait until you get a copy of Everybody Poops, if you haven't already.

Posted by: diamond dave at May 01, 2008 11:05 PM (xOzxi)

16 I love love love Maurice Sendak - even though it appears that he was partaking of the random street drug a time or ten. But really - the early to mid 70s (when I was a wee lass) are nothing but a bunch of drug-soaked ideas. Imagine the pitch party for The Banana Splits or H.R. Pufnstuf. But you know, my generation drank real-sugar coke out of glass bottles and skated around on steel wheels. And if we fell down and skinned our knees, mom put Mecurocrome (New! Improved! Extra mercury content!) on it. Oh yeah, and we drank water straight from the hose. It's a wonder we made it. Heh.

Posted by: Margi at May 01, 2008 11:35 PM (jAhxp)

17 OMG! "Love You Forever" is the CREEPIEST book I've ever read and couldn't read it to my daughter without cold chills. The sentiment is fine for the baby but the whole sneaking into his home thing was wrong! Maybe it was a subliminal attempt to teach our children that we're always watching them... "Stonking" penis!?? LOL!

Posted by: Michelle at May 02, 2008 03:44 AM (MhXdL)

18 I'm disturbed that aliens might be prancing about in my kecks while I sleep. I mean, they're aliens! Yeast infections would be the least of it! I don't want any martian pussy disease!! And thusly--carbon footprint be damned. I'm using my goddamn drier.

Posted by: Ms. Pants at May 02, 2008 02:34 PM (+p4Zf)

19 I call Love You Forever the Mommy stalking book. Cute when the kid in the book is small, but when he's a man, Mommy needs to LET GO AND GET A LIFE.

Posted by: lori at May 02, 2008 04:29 PM (MY7JG)

20 I know you're not busy, you know with twins and the entire house being ripped in half, and getting back to work, and you know, life... so when you think of it, you might consider making a list of what books the twins have so you don't end up with triplicates. I came across a pile of Dr. Seuss, but given that you have tons I wasn't sure if they would all be doubles. Bernstein bears where some of my favorites growing up, and the golden book collections.... which reminds me, I wonder what my parents did with all those books...

Posted by: Angela at May 02, 2008 06:24 PM (DGWM7)

Hide Comments | Add Comment