(no subject)

[slammerkinbabe]

People piss me off. A lot.

Instead of dealing directly with the specific person who is pissing me off in the moment, why don't I restore my mood to an even keel by going to Amazon.com and looking up asinine reviews of classic picture books, and posting them to LiveJournal for all to mock?

Say! That's a great idea!

* * *

THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK

Furry blue sub for hire

"This book is not suitable for children. In a "No Means No" society, should we be planting such ideas into the fragile, impressionable minds of the future. It concerns me that the first sentences some children read are strangely sadomasochistic. Really, throw a leather hood over Grover's head and put a zipper over his mouth and you're his instant dominatrix. So, keep this book hidden in your dresser drawer, or you might run the risk of making a fifty mile commute every Saturday morning to visit your little boy in the state prison."

* * *

GOODNIGHT, MOON

This just in: Children need no sleep

"The back flap says it has lulled children to sleep for generations. Can't see why you would want a book to do that."

* * *

THE RUNAWAY BUNNY

That bunny needs a beating

"I could not believe how uppity this bunny was. To be honest with you, this insolent little lagomorph shows no remorse whatsoever for the trials and tribulations he is obviously eager to put his (possibly unhealthily) devoted mother through. He ends up staying only because he realizes he just can't get away from his mom. I can't imagine letting my impressionable young daughter get away with this attitude!"

THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

Eric Carle is responsible for my son's eating habits (not my parenting or anything)

"Rubbish. This book has seriously hindered my son's development. After reading the book to him religiously before bedtime, he now believes himself to be just like the caterpillar. He claims to be very hungry all the time. He is constantly eating, and is becoming noticeably heavier. Unfortunately in his case I don't believe that he will turn into a beautiful butterfly at the end!"

* * *

THE CAT IN THE HAT

The cat will kill you in your sleep

"Psychological Damage. Dr Seuss was an evil genius, bent on traumatising children. As a child, his books used to terrify me. Particularly The Cat in the Hat, as well as the sinister Thing duo. Unless you're children are aficionados of Stephen King, I urge you to avoid this title."

* * *

THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL

Fairy tales are always happy all the time, and so would this one be if the little match girl would have just realized how pleasant the world is and gone home to get beaten and starved some more

"I couldn't believe it was in my nephew's book of fairy tales. Fairy tales are supposed to be happy. There was one specific sentence that shocked me..."The girl was found dead, frozen to death on New Years Eve". What kind of fairy tale is that. Sure she saw her grandmother and she's with her grandmother now, but that isn't the message that is conveyed in the story. I would have rather the girl wised up about going home with no money, realizing the world was a pleasant place to be after seeing the "light", as she struck all the matches she had."

* * *

ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY

Normal children are all sweetness and light all the time

"This book plays it off as if it's normal for children to be this negative. An extremely negative character and ugly grammar does not make a good children's book. I would give it no stars if Amazon allowed it. This is the worst children's book I have ever purchased."

* * *

GREEN EGGS AND HAM

Books shouldn't tell kids dirty things like where milk comes from. By the way, which book am I reviewing?

"A farmer is trying to teach children the basics of milking a cow and trying to show the kids were all of the animals body parts are. I think the book is ok because if the parents wanted to teach their kids about the milk producers than they can teach them by themselves rather than reading a book. What if you did not want your kids to no about that stuff yet, than they went to school and read the book than you really have a problem."

People are funny.

Comments

[thornsilver]

You meant "People are as stupid as tree stumps", right?

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Something like that, yes. :)

The Giving Tree

[archaica.livejournal.com]

There are two extreme ways to interpret this book, as shown by the multiple ratings of 1 and 5.

The first: This is a beautiful and sad story of unconditional love between a tree and a boy, in which the tree is generous and gives of itself to help the boy whenever he is in trouble. The metaphor in this case is that of a mother and a child, or God and a human.

The second: This is a story of a very selfish boy and a tree who loves him. Whenever he is in trouble, he returns to the tree who gives him another part of her self without ever setting limits, even though it makes her sad (and physically damages her) to do so. In this case, you can compare the story to a metaphor of an abusive, codependent relationship.

I can understand both views of this story, but the fact that the second interpretation is just as valid as the first makes me hesitate to recommend this book. Personally, I would NOT buy this book as a gift, or for my own children. If I had this book, I would wait to read it to my children until they reach the recommended 10 years old (or at least 8), and then I would discuss the book and its concepts (selfishness, limit setting/saying NO) with them. "What did you think of this book?" "Do you think that the tree/the boy did the right thing?" "What would you have done differently if you were the tree/the boy?" "If you were the tree, would you have said 'NO' to the boy at any point?"

Re: The Giving Tree

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

OMG I can't believe I forgot The Giving Tree!

Re: The Giving Tree

[archaica.livejournal.com]

Although I don't think that review fits in with the theme, as it actually makes sense (I am a proponent of the second view)

Also - "The Little House"

Re: The Giving Tree

[carolyn-z.livejournal.com]

Oh my good lord. People need to stop being lameasses. The Giving Tree has always been one of my favorite book, it really touched me when I was little and still does and I've never met a kid who was badly influenced by it!

Re: The Giving Tree

[archaica.livejournal.com]

I reject the whole "kids will be badly influenced by it" argument, and yet, I agree with the second premise. I find it offensive for reasons entirely unrelated to children.

[fairoriana.livejournal.com]

I'm raising a subversive. We have:
*THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK
*THE CAT IN THE HAT
*ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY
*GREEN EGGS AND HAM

One thing I often wonder is when people will let their kids be exposed to things that aren't perfect and hunky dory. Are you going to let you kid find out about death for the first time when it's their grandmother? Are they going to be in fifth grade before they realize meat, milk and eggs come from animals and subsequently freak out? Should all their books be about well-behaved children who never have anything go wrong? What happens when you can no longer protect your child and they are actually exposed to the real world?

Then again, things do need to be age appropriate. You don't want to talk to your 4 year old about multiple organisms when they ask where they came from.

I guess it's a balancing act, and I just tend to lean towards the side of good literature and reality instead of strictly controlled inputs and an unrealistically idealized view of the world.

[erbie.livejournal.com]

You don't want to talk to your 4 year old about multiple organisms when they ask where they came from.

um... uh-oh...

[llnaughty.livejournal.com]

wouldn't the proper response be "from a good partner"?

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, definitely. You see the theme of "children shouldn't be allowed to read about real life" in a much more dangerous context later on when adults start censoring their high school texts and the books that libraries carry. Pro-censorship adults have an idea that kids will never learn about the seamier side of life if they don't read about it. So they make concerted efforts to ban books that address exactly the issues that their kids are facing in everyday life. To pick an extreme example, a book came out last year about teen blow-job parties - i.e., parties at which girls go down on multiple guys and each guy gets a blow job from each girl. Inappropriate for kids? Absolutely! The problem is that the author didn't make these up. The book attempted a realistic take on the parties and actually wound up being a rather ham-fisted morality tale about why these parties aren't cool. I'm not saying that book should be on school curricula, but parents were up in arms and trying to get it banned from libraries all over the place. Meanwhile, the kids are having these parties instead of reading about them.

Basically? Denying the reality of things that you think shouldn't exist doesn't actually make them not exist.

[erbie.livejournal.com]

All kidding aside, (no, I didn't really discuss orgasms with her!), I totally agree. We just had the where do eggs come from conversation last night and now she wants to go somewhere and lift up a chicken and look at its vagina to see where the eggs come from. (Do chickens even have vaginas?) We've talked about where meat comes from before, though I don't think she really got that we were saying steak comes from killing Bessie. And we did have to deal with death pretty early on. She was 2.3 when my grandmother died.

And of course, now, we're getting the where do babies come from thing. We've just answered her questions with as little detail as possible, which I think its good for her age. And we have a couple books with illustrations. So far, she hasn't asked how the sperm gets from the daddy to the mommy's egg, and we havne't volunteered that.

But yeah, what's with sugar coating life for kids? It's not reality and they're going to be pretty disallusioned when they actually see what the world is like.

[ems.livejournal.com]

Every time I see that icon, I just think "WASH!"

A Boston classic...

[halfacricket.livejournal.com]

Make Way for Ducklings:

Sorry but I fail to see what is so great about this book. I didn't like for one thing the mother duck's arrogant attitude that she's such an expert mother and her proudly parading her brood down the street oblivious to the trouble she is causing the drivers and the endangerment to her ducklings. Not a good example for children either is her intial attempt to cross a busy street. If the policeman hadn't been there she'd have been road kill. I think it would have been better if the ducks had been characterized as dumb animals instead of one's with arrogant thought processes.

And I didn't understand why they returned to the place where they could hardly get food except begging peanuts and nearly got run over by a little boy on a bike. And why did father duck take off? A strange book, so I plan to read it a few more times to see if I can get something else out of it.

The old-timey illustrations are detailed and interesting. Thus the three stars.

Re: A Boston classic...

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

I love that that person has to read Make Way for Ducklings "a few more times" before s/he can be sure s/he's understood it. MAN.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

I really hope these reviews are jokes, else I shall go off into a corner and weep for humanity.

Though I must agree that Hans Christian Anderson was one scary dude. I mean, The Little Mermaid? "Kill the guy you love or die?" Yeah, happy thoughts for children.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

I actually left out a good few that I'm pretty sure were jokes (though not absolutely sure.) These ones seemed to be pretty serious.

[carolyn-z.livejournal.com]

And this is exactly why adults shouldn't review children's books. Because adults are too analytical, boring, and removed from life. These reviews are exactly why I have the little prince tatooed on my arm-- to remind me to check myself when I start acting too much like a dumb, miserable adult.

[perseph.livejournal.com]

Hee! These are so funny that I woke the baby laughing. Oops.

But I wish I could thank the person who wrote the review of Goodnight Moon. I hadn't noticed what it said on the back of the book, but now that I have been made aware of the danger I will be more careful about reading it to my kids. I have to agree that as nice as it would be to have a long period of quiet around here, "generations" is really too long for a child to sleep.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I wonder if that's actually what the person was getting at. That's an excerpt from a longer review, most of which was all "this book was sooooo boring the pictures are stupid I hate this book". So I interpreted it as being in keeping with the silliness of the rest of the review, but now I wonder if the reviewer was maybe wittier than I, which makes me sad.

[agatha-mandrake.livejournal.com]

My copy of The Monster At The End Of This Book must have been defective. Where is the fabulous career as a dominatrix that is was supposed to have fostered?

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Pending, darling, pending. Give it time, and maybe read the sequel.*

*

[theniwokesoftly.livejournal.com]

I just loved the typos.

"Unless you're children are aficionados of Stephen King,"

"What if you did not want your kids to no about that stuff yet, than they went to school and read the book than you really have a problem."

[baroque-n-roll.livejournal.com]

If you like those, you should check out the reviews for the Family Circus books. High-larious.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

This is apropos of nothing except the fact that I thought of you constantly when I was watching it - have you seen the episode of The Muppet Show with Elton John? Because if not you totally need to and I will burn you a copy and send it over.