Good grief, you guys. Am I the only person grabbing books off a shelf for my kids without reading them first? I mean, sometimes I’ll flip through a few pages, but if I’m being honest I’ve done that like three times ever before. Which is probably why I’ve attempted to read three of the least appropriate books for kids to my kids. Well, one of them isn’t too egregious, it just threw me off, and if there’s one thing I don’t enjoy, it’s asking my children without context, “What do you think happens when you die?”
The first offender was from my personal childhood collection. It came in the mail via my mom’s membership in the Scholastic Children’s Choice Book Club, a club that loved sending classic works like Corduroy, The Snowy Day, The Little House, and Blueberries for Sal. This group was in stark contrast to the Parents’ Magazine Book Club that sent books mostly about clowns, animals with anxiety disorders, and old men who couldn’t read or care for themselves (because old men…sheesh, what idiots!). Suffice it to say, I did not expect Scholastic’s arsenal to include a story about a young pig named Pearl who finds a talking bone, makes it her friend, is then held at gunpoint in a forest, is kidnapped by a (possibly) pedophilic fox who wants to eat her, and finally escapes to sleep with her bone that sings her to sleep.
Written by William Steig (acclaimed cartoonist at The New Yorker who also penned Shrek) and published in 1976, The Amazing Bone is terrifying. Like, truly. Let me give you the short version in screengrabs:
*”Doot-do-do…just a young, vulnerable female talking a stroll through the forest with my pet bone like I do, no big deal. What? There’s an old man stalking me? Psssht. I’ll just keep walking alone with my friend, this talking bone.”
*Not actual text from the book.[divider_flat]
“…POINTING HIS GUN AT PEARL’S HEAD.”
I mean, where’s Chris Hansen with the lemonade and cookies when you need him?
“It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again” is what I imagine comes next.
Why does he have a tire swing??
If I could write a children’s book, I would fill it with phrases like this because I think this is what kids like.
Oops, sorry! I skipped the part about how she gets away from the fox, but I didn’t want to ruin the book for you! Let’s say she escapes without harm and returns home to a mother who hugs her and a father who stands there disinterestedly smoking his pipe.
I don’t know. My three-year-old never shuts up at bedtime, and I seriously have to just back out of the room nodding my head and saying, “Yes, uh-huh, that’s cool. Well, that’s great!” and then shut her door or else she’ll never stop. Maybe a talking bone is what she’s missing?[hr]
The second offender, The Story of Colors, I picked up believing it was a bilingual book in English and Spanish about Mexican folktales from Chiapas.
Turns out it’s a book written for children by Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Which, I mean, whatever. I may be interested in learning more and comparing him to Che Guevara, but I’d prefer my preschool-aged kids to not read phrases like:
Look, my daughter already thinks she has a penis despite several about-your-body chats that have clearly gone nowhere. I do not need to add “explaining why people get tired after making love” to my To-Do List.
Here’s the illustration to go along with the above text:
I can’t really tell what’s going on here, but the man may have been better served standing on a stool. Just sayin’.
A. I will never apologizing for loving this illustration so much.
B. Is telling your children to stop their laughter or a god will take it away the opposite of Santa?
C. When the book is not talking about making love or rolling cigarettes, it’s actually providing a beautifully illustrated story about the creation of colors. Maybe it’s not too bad…
Nope. Talkin’ ’bout making love again.
And now I’ll have to explain to teachers why my kids say, “Red and yellow make love to each other and then orange is made!”‘
The third offender had a cover that looked like 99% of the whimsical designs on Etsy, complete with a cartoon cat and rabbit; and with a title like Jellybeans, I figured it would be safe.
And it was great for the first 16 pages. Cat and Rabbit call each other on cell phones to meet up for a picnic of hot chocolate and jellybeans.
Then Cat Debbie-downers everything by asking out of the blue:
Wait.
[Flips back a few pages.]
Did I miss something?
Nope. This is definitely where they’re going with this.
Well, let’s keep going. It’s kind’of sweet and not really scary.
Dang it.
Oh, no. Gettin’ worse. Double-dang it.
Oh, for the love. Whyyy?!
Well, maybe there’s some resolve…
[Flips forward a few pages.]
Eh, nope. Much like real life, all conversations end with folks getting distracted by food.
Well, there are my three strikes. Am I out? Am I no longer allowed to pick out books for my kids? Please, say it ain’t so! I just found another great one called Sylvester and his Magic Pebble, about a donkey kid that turns into a rock, can’t speak, and nobody knows where he is even though he’s right in front of them!
**Disclaimer: I love books so much I can barely believe I have enough love left for my family and friends. In general, I do not support literary censorship. Books are magnificent because though they are just words and pictures, they can be super powerful. If you don’t like a particular book, then don’t open it and read it—it’s that simple. As an adult, I super enjoyed the above three books. As a parent, I nearly had a coronary while reading them. As a terrible parent, I definitely read many pages past my comfort level because I am selfish and started laughing and honestly wanted to see what kind of cockeyed questions my kids would ask upon completion. Read these books to kids at your discretion, but definitely knock back some wine and read them out loud with another grown-up and laugh your butts off!
I actually owned Sylvester and the Magic Pebble!
It’s another great one- way less scarring than The Amazing Bone, IMO!
My in-laws gave us some old Curious George books that belonged to my husband in the 70s. There was a sort of origin story of Curious George. Basically the Man in the Yellow Hat tricks George into a trap in the jungle and stuffs him into a bag for a boat ride back to New York City where he is deposited into a zoo. He then escapes the zoo and breaks his leg running away from the zookeepers and then, in the hospital, he gets knocked unconscious from sniffing a bottle of ether. Finally the Man in the Yellow Hat rescues George from the hospital and takes him back to the zoo. The End. Not exactly the warm and fuzzy George cartoon on TV. And my son (age 3) points to the picture of George stuffed into the bag and says “George caught” all in a sad voice.
YOU HAVE THE ORIGIN STORY! This is great (and super sad) but mostly great news! Several people were talking about George and TMWTYH and how he’s not the most attentive caregiver, so now it all makes sense. I was like, “TMWTYH shot George alone, in a rocket, into space. He’s the worst caregiver ever.” But now you’ve tied it all together. Thank you!
We had the pleasure of “watching” The Magic Bone on one of the lovely Scholastic videos we picked up from the library. I want to say that John Lithgow does the voices. So anyway, I was cleaning the kitchen one morning and all of sudden, I started to actually hear the words coming out of our TV. My girls quickly learned to skip past that one in the collection. Too weird.
WHAT. THERE IS A VIDEO??
I mean, Steig is brilliant and so is Lithgow. I’ll have to check it out! Uh, for myself right now, I guess!
I’m thrilled my son loves his children’s bible so much, but I never realized how violent the bible is. Seriously. His favorite story is David and Goliath, after which he likes to reenact David killing Goliath dead with a slingshot and then celebrating. Doh.
I know! We had to be careful during Hanukkah because we just didn’t feel like talking with our preschool kids (yet) about oppression and war atrocities and the origin of the whole story. We were like, “Let’s just focus on the menorah and the lights and save the war part for later.”
Where’s “I’ll Love You, Forever” with creepy mama climbing through her adult son’s bedroom window?
Dang it! I knew I missed something! That’s another GREAT one!