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Children’s Books that Bother Me
As I have noticed an interest in children’s literature among Ricochet commentators, I would like to write about some less interesting books we have recently received as gifts. Many people may disagree with me. After all we received these books as gifts, and I see from the Amazon reviews that they are much loved with some folks. “Amazing”, “wonderful” and “gorgeous” are the words that bubble up when people discuss this book. I disagree and Ricochet seems the place to air misfit opinions, especially when I suspect the consensus has been established by leftists. I think generally speaking there is far too little judgement these days and I think children’s behavior, parenting and children’s books as well as other cultures and religions should all be fair game for civilized discussion.
The first example of a book that bothers me is the much loved Benji Davies book, Storm Whale, published in 2013 and given to our kids by a (liberal) friend, who, excuse me but it’s true, last read a book in its entirety in 1998 and who is guided entirely in these things by his wife, a lefty with the sense of humor of a doorknob, in part to contest my ideologically worrisome assertion that today’s children’s books aren’t good because they have very few words on the page and no plot. I thanked him enthusiastically, and we parted on the best of terms, but The Storm Whale only confirms my suspicions that any children’s book published after 2000 (or even earlier – I am a hardliner) is worthless.
First of all, the protagonist’s name is Noi. What kind of name is Noi? Of what origin? It’s clearly superior to John or Peter, and if you read your child a book in which the protagonist’s name is Noi then you are obviously an educated, openminded, interesting person with cool sneakers who would never read Kai and Tabitha a story about a boy named Tom or a girl named Laura.
Noi is a funny, genderless, rootless little thing, clad throughout the whole book in a sort of close-fitting black cap that seems to fasten under his chin and the obligatory classic French mariner t-shirt beloved in the high-income enclaves where Storm Whale is a hit (full disclosure: my kids wear them), among parents. I doubt any child could ever truly relate to such an insipid muppet.
Noi lives alone with his father, a fisherman. Again, my alarm bells were going crazy here. Single father. (“There are all sorts of families, Kai!”) A single mother would push all sorts of buttons. And why are women always depicted as maternal? What nonsense! Men can look after small children. Even macho working-class men, as Noi’s father clearly is. (He is in fact the sort of brute that repels the sort of people who adore The Storm Whale, but we shouldn’t split hairs). The social messaging wallops the reader.
Noi doesn’t go to school or play with toys, but wanders around bleak wintry northern beaches, depicted with self-conscious artistry by Davies (clearly angling for praise for the pictures), and one day finds a whale which he takes home and puts in the bathtub. As one does, especially the kind of helicoptered, hyper-scheduled child for whom Storm Whale is intended. His dad makes him put it back in the sea, and that’s a Good Thing, because of Nature.
When I dutifully read this aloud to my daughter (it takes about 11 seconds to read and is therefore good for parents who have more important things to do), she looked blankly back at me at the end and said “OK”. Children are very alive to adult machinations. We then went off to get a book from the Arthur series by Marc Brown or Russell and Lilian Hoban’s Bedtime for Frances, both of which were written in prehistoric times when there were girls’ restrooms in schools and children were gendered and had mothers and fathers, who were women and men, respectively.
The second book which we received as a gift and which also bothers me is Quentin Blake’s Mrs Armitage Queen of the Road. Quentin Blake will be familiar to many as the illustrator of the Roald Dahl books, famous for his angular sketchy illustrations of angular, quirky, long-nosed Hampsteady-looking people.
Anyway, Mrs. Armitage receives a car from her Uncle Cosmo (again, these Quirky names) and she and her dog Breakspear (more Quirky) go for a ride and Mrs. Armitage drives really terribly. Bits of the car breaks off over the course of the book until it basically looks like a motorcycle and eventually Uncle Cosmo and his motorcycle gang adopt Mrs. Armitage and that’s Really Funny because you as a sophisticated urban parent can chortle quietly to yourself about the hilarity of a motorcycle gang going to the Crazy Duck Café to drink banana fizz and how funny it is that Mrs. Armitage, who’s clearly an art history professor type, is now wearing a studded leather collar bequeathed to her by the gang sexpot, Lulu. But kids don’t really know what a motorcycle gang is, or why it’s supposed to be funny, or why Lulu would have a studded collar and a bare midriff. But it does encourage a sort of faux sophistication in the child that in turn elicits beaming pride from the parent.
My kids didn’t get it at all. It was met with blank silence and requests for another story – they felt cheated and I was embarrassed. Nothing like a child for effortlessly calling out phoniness.
I think many of these books are written to épater self-conscious hipster parents, with very little time on their hands, who worry about the traditional character of the old children’s classics. I am incredulous that there are parents who cuddle their children at the end of a long day over The Storm Whale or Mrs. Armitage Queen of the Road. In any case, neither of my kids has ever requested either book after the initial time. I imagine that these are books for people looking for “new kids’ books”, because they are wary about the old ones and their repressions or their oppressions. There is no moral in these books unless it’s something performative and faddish, like liberating the whale you caught. Quirkiness is obligatory. Interestingly, these newer children’s books are very uncomplicated, compared to some of the complexities explored in A Bargain for Frances, in which Frances the badger tells Thelma her treacherous friend, “Do you want to be careful or do you want to be friends?” Or Rosemary Wells’ board books about Max getting the advantage over his bossy sister Ruby or Ira who hesitates to bring his teddy bear to a sleepover for fear of being ridiculed by his best friend, who ends up having a teddy bear himself. Children don’t need to think about motorcycle gangs or liberating captive whales. We are overthinking this.
Published in Education
Not too into toilet humor. Kids tend to be so they like it. Very ugly illustrations. I know I will take flack for this, but Dr Seuss never did it for me and my mom didn’t like it either.
Dr. Seuss was good for beginning readers. The rhythm and rhyme probably helped my kids develop a “good ear.” But, there are better children’s stories, for sure, and we were happy to move on to them.
Oh, there’s definitely a sort of Hippie-ish vibe to Silverstein’s poems and drawings. Particularly his drawings, some of which are kind of filthy (He was an illustrator for Playboy after all). But it’s more Hippie than Yippie, so I can handle it.
He had a very long and varied career, so it’s weird that he’s mostly known for The Giving Tree and the books of poems aimed at kids that are still in print today.
I am just now learning that he wrote “A Boy Named Sue” which Johnny Cash made famous.
did he?! Very interesting. “A Boy Named Sue” —- more things that don’t work in our time. In The Marvelous Land of Oz, old Mombi enchanted Ozma and turned her into a boy, Tip. At the end of the book, Tip is changed back into his true form, a girl. Surprised the alphabet lobby hasn’t made it their point of reference. Let’s keep it among ourselves at Ricochet.
Major spoilers, there!
I think The Marvelous Land of Oz is the best of the Oz books, and is Baum at his most satirical. Written at a time when women’s suffrage was a big issue, and women were slowly gaining the right to vote, it’s sort of a pro-feminist novel where Baum upends all the traditional male/female roles, applies stereotypes to everyone, and even skewers academia for good measure. Plus, it’s really funny.
And yes, there’s transgenderism, too. He was so ahead of his time! But I don’t expect him to survive the cultural revolution intact.
Yes we love it too! I don’t think it’s “transgenderism” in the 2015 sense. Nor do I think that he had a kinky hidden meaning, like Louis Carroll photographs or something. Do you think so? I see Ozma/Tip as magic for children circa 1901.
We are on Ozma of Oz. So amazing when they kill the Nome King with eggs!
No, I agree. It’s just typical L. Frank Baum weirdness. But the modern woke would definitely consider it an example of historical transgenderism in literature.
But I have noticed that Baum tended to put women in positions of leadership.
Yes!! All the more reason to stop howling about how women have “no representation”! And it goes back to the Norse myths, the Greek myths, Cleopatra, Shakespeare.
No, Michelle Obama was the first “strong woman” EVER 🤣🤣🤣
Not reinventing the wheel, people!
Tho I must say, Helen of Troy is an embarrassment to my sex. My daughter and I were pretty disgusted with her!