Books

I often end up editing library books as I read to Sara if I don't get the chance to preview them. Some I just close and say they are mean. Arthur was one of those. On the second page of Arthur and the True Francine Arthur's friend Buster says of one of the teachers, "He sleeps in a coffin and drinks human blood." What?!! Why would a children's author include that description? I also disliked Pinkalicious. Sara loved the concept of everything being pink. I also thought the idea was cute but we can do without the negative attitudes modeled in the book. Sara comes by that naturally and she doesn't need more material. The other thing that annoyed me about that one was the way green vegetables were portrayed, as "yuck" food. The the pink "yummy" food was sugary, nutrition-less crap.

I just finished reading Nurtureshock which presents and discusses a bunch of interesting research on various parenting topics. In a study on sibling relationships, the researcher concluded that having children read books such as the Berenstein Bears which deal with sibling conflict actually results in a negative impact on their relationships because of the negative modeling. The books always resolve the conflict and the kids in the story learn to treat each other better but the majority of the book is devoted to the conflict and includes a lot of negative modeling and that is the part the kids pick up. We have closed a couple of Berenstein Bear books. The other thing that annoys me about them is the way Papa Bear is portrayed like a doofus while only Mama is the competent parent. I can usually manage to edit that out.

Reading Children's Bible Stories is also interesting. In the story of the plagues on Egypt when Pharaoh would not let God's people go the final plague is that the firstborn sons will die. The Children's Bible we have says they will disappear which I thought was an appropriate way to put things for a 3 year old. I have never realized how much violence there is in Bible stories.