Strollerderby : banned books week

Learning to Read through Video Games

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:30:00 GMT

Increasingly, books for children and young adults are being released with related video games. Since 97 percent of children ages 12 to 17 play computer and video games, this seems like a surefire to draw at least some reluctant readers into books. But when libraries host gaming tournaments and elementary schools incorporate video games into English lessons, you have to wonder, “Is this still reading?”

A large number of writers, publicists, and educators believe it is—and that, in the age of digital media, computer skills may be more important than proficiency with print media.

PJ Haarsma is a former advertising consultant who now designs online games about his science fiction novels for preteens. He argues that pairing video games with young adult literature “brings the book into their world, as opposed to going the other way around.”

But, as I pointed out in my tribute to Roald Dahl, the mark of a good book is precisely the ability to get lost in it, to live inside a world of which one has no experiential knowledge. This is particularly important for children, who largely learn empathy, respect for the imagination, and the value of introspection through reading. When one is being tested about a book’s plot in order to advance in a video game, the quiet, self-forgetful pleasure of being lost in a good book gets obliterated completely. Children learn that the only character who matters is the one holding the controller.

Photo: New York Times

Banned Books Week

Librarians Banning Books? Another Take on Banned Books Week

Miriam Axel-Lute — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:40:00 GMT

Let me start off by saying that I adore librarians (being the daughter of two, including a children's librarian), and have immense respect for the fights they've been fighting to in defense of free speech and access to controversial content, as well as all they put up with from people who think they know how to do a librarian's job better than the librarian.

But I couldn't quite write off this post by small-press author Joe Ekaitis charging that library policies that limit purchases to books reviewed in high-profile journals are limiting the range of what kids have access to just as much or more than moralistic wackos who rarely succeed in getting a book banned in more than one or two individual places. In fact, he argues that celebrity-penned books with bad reviews get bought, while books that got published on merit alone are being overlooked.

And ayway, he asked, "how does a book build up a readership without some exposure, beginning close to home? Isn't the library the place to discover books you can't easily find elsewhere? Everyone knows where to find best-sellers. They're at Wal-Mart."

There's clearly some sour grapes tone to the argument, but also a worrying charge. It shouldn't take more time to read and judge a picture book donated by a local author than to read a review of it. (Or maybe the donation is the problem, since a librarian doesn't want to feel obligated to shelve something she doesn't like because it was free.) And yes, I don't want my library to just replicate the shelves at big box bookstores. (For the record, I don't feel like mine does.)

What you do think? How are the shelves in your library? Are you worried about defacto censorship by publishing monopoly?

Strollerderby's recent banned books week coverage:

James and the Giant Peach; Kama Sutra for Kids; Smother the Fire and Read a Banned Book

In the Night Kitchen; Little Women; R.L. Stine's Goosebumps; Sarah Palin; And Tango Makes Three

Shel Silverstein; Where's Waldo?; Judy Blume and 'Forever'; Is Racism Packaged as Children's Literature Defensible?

Roald Dahl's The Witches

More by this author:

10 Names to Give Your Under-5 Daughter for Her . . . You Know

Banned Books Week: James and the Giant Peach

Madeline Holler — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

I'll admit that when my then first-grader and I sat down to read James and the Giant Peach, right away I felt the urge to shield her. But not from the word "ass" which comes up frequently. And not because there's whiskey drinking and snuff snorting and child-beating -- I love that stuff! (I mean, in literature.) What gave me pause were James's cruel guardians Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. Because one is suuuuuuper fat and one is suuuuuuper skinny and their fatness and skinniness are laughed at and criticized and meant to be totally disgusting.

James and the Giant Peach read more like Me and My Giant Body Issues, at least in the first few chapters.

We kept reading but I was in high-alert mode. The last thing I wanted was to give permission to my kid to laugh at -- or even think sinister things about -- people because of the size and shape of their bodies. My girl's a girl! And Dahl's literature is powerful! Would his words about Aunt Sponge (the fatty) -- "she had a white flabby face" and was "like a great white soggy overboiled cabbage" -- come back to her some day in a particularly critical moment in front of the mirror? If I had laughed, would she have remembered that, thinking maybe Mommy agreed?

This is the crazy thing about censorship. Am I honestly going to hold a book accountable for the entirety of one girl's self-image? Or can she just go ahead and hear a story and soak up Dahl's writing, which includes descriptions of extreme body size to physically illustrate two very extreme personalities? (They're total meanies!) Same goes for other books that get challenged. One story? Really? That's your kid's great undoing?

The aunts went away early on in the book and I packed the body critiques away in my mind for the next time we would read it. I barely batted an eye at the rest of what some consider shocking language and imagery -- cause for some elementary schools to stop reading it, pull it from the shelves and generally get the classic filed under "one of the most challenged books."

Some examples: a grasshopper declared "I'd rather be fried alive and eaten by a Mexican!"; a spider licks his lips which is apparently sexually suggestive; and then all the mystical and magical elements (they're flying around in a Giant Peach, it's true.)

I'm all for licked lips (certain that the sexual element goes right over my kid's head) and magical elements. As for the Mexican comment, it's referencing a part of a culture that, indeed, eats fried bugs.

What I love about book challenges and right-out banning is that they are a real testament to the power of good literature, creative language, original imagery. Sure, we all hate certain realities of this world where we're raising our kids. And as jumpy as it makes adults to be reminded of all this crap when it comes up in innocent children's stories, I can't think of a safer way to get a first glimpse at sex or racism or brutal adults or the empty, scared feeling of being alone, really alone -- or even the joy (and consequences) of breaking the rules than between book covers. Adults get the well-worn version of life's good and bad all the time in books. Why should kids miss out? Can anybody honestly name a single book (or movie or song lyric) that corrupted their otherwise perfect child?

My daughter doesn't really remember the aunts, except that they were scary. In the meantime, she's heard plenty of body talk since we read it (mostly, incidentally, from adult women). I'm sure she's heard the word "ass" too, and while we're not big whiskey drinkers and have never managed to develop a steady snuff habit, she knows about booze too. Did she learn it from James and the Giant Peach? Doubtful. Maybe she heard it there first, but that's a pretty big world out there. Just what do book banners think they can actually accomplish?

We're closing the book today on Banned Books Week. Tell us, which banned books did you/will you read?

Banned Books Week: Where's Waldo?

Brett Singer — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

When I saw the titles of books that had been banned I was pretty shocked to see "Where's Waldo?" on the list. I could not imagine how a book of pictures featuring a guy who appears to derive great enjoyment from hiding in crowded places would offend anyone.

Silly daddy! There's always something.

In this case, the problem is a Waldo wardrobe malfunction.

In the original 1987 edition of "Where's Waldo?", this following image appears:

As you can see, the woman has removed her bikini top, presumably to enable a more even tan. A small male person, perhaps a child, is dumping water on the woman's back, causing her to leap up in surprise and show her "girls" to a rather happy looking gentleman who appears to have some brown substance smeared on his chest (I'm color-blind, so apologies if that color isn't brown). If you look really really really closely, and are more than a little bit uptight, you might even say that there is a nipple showing.

The image was altered for a 1997 "special edition:"

As you can see, the painted jezebel has covered up. Now children everywhere are safe.

But I think the new image doesn't go far enough! As some folks point out over on snopes.com, the top left corner of this scene clearly shows two men in a compromising position – not only that, but one of the men is African-American! And in the bottom right corner, the elderly woman is obviously touching the man in his private area behind the screen he is holding up. Plus, there's some guy in medieval armor being buried in sand, and we all know what that means…

End of sarcasm.

The funny thing about this one is that the woman in question is actually showing some boobage. If not for the protests, I imagine very few people would have noticed the nefarious nipple. Not that it matters; I highly doubt any child has been scarred by the Where's Waldo? books. Bored, maybe. But not scarred.

Images: Waldo Wiki, Amazon

More from Banned Books Week here at Babble:

Banned Books Week: R.L. Stine's Goosebumps

Banned Books Week: Shel Silverstein

Banned Books Week: Kama Sutra for Kids

Banned Books Week: Little Women

Banned Books Week: In the Night Kitchen

Banned Books Week: Sarah Palin

Banned Books Week: "And Tango Makes Three"

Banned Books Week: Is Racism Packaged as Children's Literature Defensible?

Shannon LC Cate — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 01:12:00 GMT

"It's not racist! My mother says it!" objected an acquaintance when I suggested she not continue to use the phrase "that's white of you"*

Why is it that people assume things associated with childhood or their own loved ones are magically not racist simply by virtue of that association? When I saw Little Black Sambo on the banned book list, I winced. Because there's more than a small part of me that would like to see such minstrel-esque images of Black people erased from the culture. (And before someone dismisses this by telling me that he is Indian, "Sambo" and his ilk migrated to America and came to be representative of the enslaved and formerly enslaved population here, too.) Maybe the world wouldn't be any worse off without Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, all those mammy-figurines made into salt and pepper shakers, pickaninny dolls, the film Birth of a Nation...

Two parts of me are at war when I see these things: one part cultural theorist with a specialty in black and white race relations in the United States and one part white Mama Bear to two beautiful Black daughters. Seeing "them" (all Black children reflect my daughters to me now) portrayed with caricature thick-lipped grins, rolling white eyes in an unnaturally black face--unnuanced by the shades of gold and mahogany that make my babies so take-your-breath-away gorgeous--doesn't just turn my stomach; it makes tears spring to my eyes. I want to slay the dragon of racism for my girls. I want to make the history go away. I want never to have to explain slavery, Jim Crow, minstrelsy and blackface, lynching, disproportionate Black poverty, and perhaps least of all the sexual vulnerability of Black women throughout American history from the first woman whose baby was ruled to "follow her condition" of slavery, rather than his slave-master father's.

And yet, it is these very forces that have brought my children to me. It is surely the fallout of centuries of racism that hammered their mothers into circumstances requiring them to place their babies for adoption. To deny this history is to deny my children's very existence--not just as my children, but as the progeny of generations of women who have struggled under the burden of racism and made life beautiful anyway; who have taught their daughters the true value of their minds, hearts and souls, however unappreciated by the world outside their skin. To hide the seemingly insurmountable obstacles these women (and men of course) have lived with and through is to hide the power of their spirits and the sacrifices of their heroes both famous and obscure. It is to take something away from their individual dignity and their collective glory.

Little Black Sambo was a fixture in my own childhood. The kind daycare workers at the church preschool I attended from ages three to five read it regularly to my all-white class. I loved it. I was intrigued by the mechanism by which tigers could churn themselves into butter. I was still too young to know that couldn't really happen. For all I knew, I would turn into butter if I ran in fast enough circles.

But just because I remember enjoying the story as an "innocent" child doesn't mean it wasn't/isn't racist. And just because I don't think it should be banned, doesn't mean I will be reading it to my own three-year old. But I think it is vitally important that these representations of blackness be acknowledged, remembered, taught, explained, critiqued, and understood. I will have to teach my daughters the shameful history of racism in this country, perhaps most of all because that history continues to unfold within our lifetimes. We should no more ban books like Little Black Sambo than we should pretend to be "colorblind." Acknowledgement of the real meaning of race in real people's daily lives and in the history of our country is necessary honesty required to fight against racism's continued power.

* For the lucky ones of you who haven't heard this, it's a fairly common southern expression meaning roughly, "you're a mensch!"

More from Banned Books Week here at Babble:

Banned Books Week: R.L. Stine's Goosebumps

Banned Books Week: Shel Silverstein

Banned Books Week: Kama Sutra for Kids

Banned Books Week: Little Women

Banned Books Week: In the Night Kitchen

Banned Books Week: Sarah Palin

Banned Books Week: "And Tango Makes Three"

Banned Books Week: Roald Dahl's The Witches

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Roald Dahl was my first role model. After I read The Witches in third grade, I decided I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. Not only did I read everything else Dahl had written, but I started writing my own stories in imitation of his style. I lent The Witches to my best friend, who struggled in school and especially hated reading. She also fell in love with Dahl, and we’ve been swapping books ever since.

Dahl is so beloved amongst elementary school children because he understands the child’s worldview, and he writes from it. His creations are whimsical and imaginative in the way that children think. Perhaps most importantly, he makes kids laugh. Reading his books gave me the message that my own imagination was valued, and could be a highly entertaining plaything. When a writer constructs a story that engages young people to this degree, his books should be spread as widely as possible.

But this is apparently not the thinking of many outspoken critics. The Witches, number 27 on the list of the most frequently challenged books of 90s, was criticized by psychologists for being unrealistic, and therefore giving children a false idea of the way the world works. Feminists were outraged by its supposedly negative portrayal of women. And, naturally, witch groups throughout the world were highly offended.

To all of these critics, Dahl responded, “Get a sense of humor.” Children do not read his books as sociological textbooks, but as stories, works of the imagination. Dahl’s witches are not even human; they have no toes.

The Witches is not the only Dahl creation to come under fire. Many of Dahl’s books were frequently challenged because, in the words of one critic, he doesn’t write about “nice themes.” (Talk about unrealistic.) I still can’t watch a horror movie without having nightmares for days, so I guarantee that if Dahl’s books were overly dark or violent, I wouldn’t have read them. The Witches is certainly scary at times, which is part of what makes it a great read. It taught me to be lost in a book to the degree that I became scared or happy or sad along with the characters.

Being moved by literature is one of the most important ways that young children learn to be engaged with the world. Teaching children that only “nice” feelings and events are acceptable to talk about dangerously limits this engagement.

Today, I remember almost nothing of the storyline of The Witches, but I often recall the way it affected me. The plot itself didn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that I got completely lost in it. Dahl himself put it best himself: “If my books can help children become readers, then I feel I have accomplished something important.”

Image: reader2.com

Roald Dahl's Widow Recalls His Childlike Sensibility

Banned Books Week: Judy Blume and 'Forever'

Jen Chaney — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:58:00 GMT

Many Generation Xers, especially us girls, spent a good chunk of our childhoods/early adolescences with Judy Blume. The author of such preteen classics as "Blubber" and "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" dared to write about subjects -- puberty, bullying, teen sexuality -- that most people only whispered about, if they ever addressed them at all.

It's just that kind of daring, of course, that usually gets an author in literary hot water, which is why Ms. Blume ranks at No. 2 on the American Library Association's list of top 10 most frequently challenged authors from 1990 to 2004. Blume can claim five titles on the list of 2007's most frequently challenged books ("challenged" signifying that some person or group filed a formal request to restrict access to the material), a pretty astonishing feat since all of them were published more than three decades ago.

Her most well-known offender, and the book that ranks at No. 13, is "Forever," a young-adult novel that takes a very candid look at two teenagers negotiating a romantic and sexual relationship. It's not difficult to understand why some might question its appropriateness, considering that Katherine, the female protagonist, goes on the pill and has "relations" with her boyfriend. The explicitness of the sexuality -- and, in some people's minds, the implicit suggestion that it's okay for teens to do it -- is why "Forever" seems to have a permanent place in the Banned Books Hall of Fame.

I read "Forever" when I was probably 10 or 11. Honestly, a lot of the details flew thousands of feet over my head. I remember understanding that the subject matter was racy, enough so that I made sure neither of my parents were around each time I cracked it open. My other key memory of that book is Ralph -- the nickname that Katherine's boyfriend, Michael, gave to his penis. I am not sure if I was more surprised to learn that a boy might actually nickname his willy, or that he would choose a name like Ralph. Even then, I thought something like Thor might be a better choice.

As fuzzy as my memory of "Forever" is, I do know this: Reading that book did not scar me, nor did it make me want to go out and get laid as soon as I reached my teen years. If anything, the fact that Katherine and Michael's relationship does not last "forever" may have taught me how important it is to be careful in matters of love, romance and sex. I say may but really, I don't recall. I remember Ralph, but not much else.

And that leads me to an important point about Banned Books Week: As parents, we all feel justifiable concern about the books our children read. But in many cases, kids tend to forget some of the things they have read, or at least not dwell on the details as much as moms and dads do. What may sound like a terribly salacious double entendre to us, for example, may glide right on by our kids without them even noticing.That's why banning books, or any material, is such a dicey proposition. What's offensive is very, very subjective, even within the same household, let alone from family to family.

In case you're wondering, the other Blume tomes that showed up on last year's most frequently challenged books were: "Blubber" (no. 36), "Are You There God? It's Me Margaret" (no. 82), "Then Again Maybe I Won't" (no. 93) and "Tiger Eyes" (no. 94). I read every one of them as a kid and, while some may have concerns about the language or sexual content they contain, not one of them deserves to be banned.

Not surprisingly, Judy Blume has become a vocal opponent of censorship over the years. As she writes on her Web site: "It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers."

Blume's books may make that "challenged" list every year. But none of them has ever successfully been banned. I think it's safe to say her novels will indeed be around "forever."

More from Banned Books Week here at Babble:

Banned Books Week: R.L. Stine's Goosebumps

Banned Books Week: Shel Silverstein

Banned Books Week: Kama Sutra for Kids

Banned Books Week: Little Women

Banned Books Week: In the Night Kitchen

Banned Books Week: Sarah Palin

Banned Books Week: "And Tango Makes Three"

Banned Books Week: R.L. Stine's Goosebumps

JeanneSager — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:32:00 GMT

Before a boy wizard bounced him from his post, R.L. Stine was once the best-selling children's book author of all time. And while his scary stories reigned supreme in kids' hearts, they sat at number 16 on the American Library Association's most challenged books of the 1990s.

The kids loved him. The parents loved to hate him. To be honest, I've never been a fan. He's been writing teen and child books since the the mid-1980s, so ostensibly I could have picked one up at the library over the years. I don't remember any. I do remember picking up a Goosebumps paperback a few years ago - my Harry Potter obsession serving as a gateway back into childhood literature in my adult years. What struck me wasn't how clever the book was or how I couldn't put it down - I could have left it just as quickly as I'd taken it - but that I finally understood why my little brother always had a tough time getting these back to the library on time. It was right up any preteen boy's alley. Which is exactly what makes people's attempts over the years to have them removed from library shelves such a travesty.

Getting kids to read as they enter the tween years - especially boys - can at times be like pulling teeth. A study funded by Scholastic in 2006 showed 40 percent of kids between the ages of 5 and 8 are "high frequency readers" who read for fun every day. That number drops to 29 percent of kids in the 9 to 11 range and even lower as they get older. Separating the genders, the study found boys are three times more likely than girls to say reading for fun is "not at all important."

Ironically, one mom speaking out in an 1997 CNN story about a parental movement to get Goosebumps pulled from the shelves at her local school admitted her son only read for school reports before he started picking up Stine's novels. "And I had to force him to do that," she said. Excuse the Homer Simpson moment, but . . . DOH!

If you want to encourage kids to read, you let them do it. You give them books or magazines that interest them. They can be reading absolute drivel and still learn vocabulary, sentence structure, grammar. Yes, they're a little scary - which is why they've been challenged over the years. But a generation of boys growing up without books on their shelves is enough to give me nightmares.

Image: Amazon

Banned Books Week: Shel Silverstein

Banned Books Week: Kama Sutra for Kids

Banned Books Week: Little Women

Banned Books Week: In the Night Kitchen

Banned Books Week: Sarah Palin

Banned Books Week: "And Tango Makes Three"

Banned Books Week: Shel Silverstein

JeanneSager — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:33:00 GMT

His A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends were my first introductions to poetry, his The Giving Tree one of the first hardcovers I bought for my daughter's library. But Shel Silverstein is one of the authors whose books have been repeatedly yanked from the shelves of local libraries.

Which is not to say that I hesitated a second when I placed them on my daughter's shelves. In fact, the reasons two of his books have been censored in America top publisher Harper Collins' list of the Top Ten Silly Reasons to Ban a Harper Collins Children's Book delve right into silly themselves.

A one-time Playboy cartoonist, Silverstein is a scary looking guy - I'll give you that. I've been tempted to remove the book jackets from all four of his titles before letting my daughter take them to bed (as she likes to do with her books - kind of reminds me of her mother). But I still refuse to judge a book by its cover, even one with a bald-headed guy with a full beard and some strange wooly thing wrapped around his neck.

Because inside, his books of poetry are full of hilarious nonsense. There are few rhymes and plenty of made-up-words. There are simple line drawings paired with poems that let kids explore the questions they're dying to ask, from why a babysitter doesn't sit on the baby to what you'll find where the sidewalk ends. In fact Silverstein pretends every child's dream can come true, which is why I remember late nights with my books of poetry in bed as a kid, giggling over the mustache grown 100 inches long just so you won't have to use a rope or board for your tree swing.

So what was so awful about his books? On page 12, A Light in the Attic "encourages children to break dishes so they won't have to dry them" according to the folks at the Cunningham Elementary School in Beloit, Wisconsin back in 1985. Oh, the horrors. In fact, the poem How Not To Have To Dry The Dishes is like most of Silverstein's itty bitty ditties. It's a total of eight lines about an "awful, boring chore." A chore, he supposes, "maybe they won't let you" do anymore, if you drop one of the dishes on the floor. Which I'm sure the kids will be debating once they finish considering the poem on the facing page - how someone could have possibly stolen someone's knees.

Apparently Silverstein should steer clear of Wisconsin. Where the Sidewalk Ends was pulled from the shelves at West Allis-West Milwaukee, Wis. school libraries (1986) because the book "suggests drug use, the occult, suicide, death, violence, disrespect for truth, disrespect for legitimate authority, rebellion against parents." Shhhhh. Don't tell the kids there's real life beyond these four walls. Of course the poem Dreadful from Sidewalk really takes the cake, or should we say the flesh? A mention that "someone ate the baby," prompted people at the Central Columbia School District in Bloomsburg, Pa. to yank Sidewalk, lest children be encouraged to consider cannibalism. This was in 1993, folks.

I'm willing to risk my daughter's rebellion, the fact that she may one day want to take a bite out of my arm and a broken dish or two in favor of some creativity and the fact that she likes a book enough to take it to bed. Come to think of it, maybe it's time to introduce her to Silverstein's contribution to class rock and roll. You know, life ain't easy for a boy named Sue.

Image: HarperCollins

Banned Books Week: Smother the Fire and Read a Banned Book

Banned Books Week: In the Night Kitchen

Banned Books Week: Kama Sutra for Kids

Banned Books Week: Little Women

Banned Books Week: Kama Sutra for Kids

Madeline Holler — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:00:00 GMT

There we were, my 7-year-old daughter and I, sitting down together to read a Banned! Book! I mean, banned books? Oh, bring it on! I don't "do censorship," I fight it. I chalk up banned book efforts to ignorance and dogmatism and misguided fears of the real world. In fact, the only things I ban in my house -- the only things I censor -- are ignorance, dogmatism and misguided fears of the real world.

So we kept reading. We pointed at pictures! We laughed! We turned the pages.

And for the first half of Babette Cole's frequently banned and/or censored book Mommy Laid An Egg: Or, Where Do Babies Come From?, all I could think was "tame, tame, benign, and tame." What the hell were the bored Christian housewives so upset about when they demanded it be pulled from library shelves, hidden behind the check-out counter and wrapped in brown paper before sending it home for review by a pair of innocent eyes. Then we turned to page 21.

OMG, I blushed.

Let me back up: Mommy Laid an Egg is a picture book that explains how babies are made. No biggie. Two kids' hippie parents decide one day to explain the facts of life. But when they say the little boy and girl were dropped off by a stork, or that they grew in the garden, or were squeezed from a tube of baby paste, well, the wiser-than-them kids step in and sketch out the real deal -- to their parents (who wind up blushing too, I might defensively add).

So we see kid drawings of mom and her boobs, dad and his "seed pods" and an arrow pointing to Mommy's hole where Dad is to insert his "tube." Good information. Love the simple language and images.

Turn the page: it's the book's money shot, the aforementioned page 21. This is clearly the page that earned the book's nickname, "The Kama Sutra for Kids." Four different sketches of Mom and Dad copulating. There's missionary style ... on a skateboard. Then she's on top as they float through the air with helium balloons. We've got upright and bouncing on a Space Hopper. And defying gravity as he rides her while she's standing on her head. They're always smiling! It looks real fun! OK, next page?

Page doesn't turn. Daughter goes quiet. There's just so much to see! My daughter is lingering. Staring and staring and staring at the good times between Mom and Dad.

"Do you have any questions," I ask, in my steadiest ain't no thing voice. No. Clock ticks. Crickets chirp. Cheeks get real hot. I go inward, focusing energy on suppressing an uncomfortable laugh.

Eventually, we move on. There's all the stuff about sperm and egg and babies growing and birthing, blah, blah ... one's mind tends to linger on page 21. So I think to myself, "huh. Do the censor nuts have a point?" Did Babette Cole cross a line?

As I set the book on our coffee table, I see a magazine laying face down. On the back cover is an ad featuring a scantily clad model with her ass in the air and a come hither look on her face. Never noticed that. Next day driving to school, we pass a billboard for a watch or perfume or Hennessey ... something. It features a pre-copulatory couple all entwined and horny-faced. Has that always been there?

Bus stop poster with sexy Gossip Girls. The weekly alternative with the phone sex ads. Should all of this doin'-it be so highly charged and explicitly non-explicit and hot and pouty and glamorous? Or can it be kind of explicitly normal and fun and sometimes have a point besides revenge, power, Swiss watches and a reason to shop couture? I'm thinking since the former is inevitable, the latter should get some air time, too.

So book burners, suck it up and leave Mommy Laid an Egg alone. Naked parents humping on a Space Hopper? Oh, bring it on!

Related Posts:

James and the Giant Peach

Smother the Fire and Read a Banned Book

In the Night Kitchen

Little Women

R.L. Stine's Goosebumps

Sarah Palin

And Tango Makes Three

Shel Silverstein

Where's Waldo?

Judy Blume and 'Forever'

Is Racism Packaged as Children's Literature Defensible?

Roald Dahl's The Witches

Photo: chroniclebooks.com

Banned Books Week: Little Women

Amy Kuras — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 02:59:00 GMT

Let me explain to you how important Little Women is in my personal history: I was named Amy for the youngest March sister. My daughter shares a name with another, and the other two March girl’s names were top contenders. I’ve probably read this book, no lie, 100 times since I first picked it up when I was 8 or 9 years old.

Which is why I found it mystifying when I looked over this list of most frequently challenged children’s books and found Little Women included. I immediately grabbed it for my entry in our Banned Books Week coverage. I found it absolutely, positively mystifying that those incredibly wholesome book – a book which, it must be noted, even author Louisa May Alcott herself found a little much – would be offensive to anyone.

As it turns out, I couldn’t find anything that outlined a specific challenge. As an iconic book for young girls and the progenitor of an independent, intelligent, strong-minded heroine in Jo March, Little Women has been exhaustively discussed in feminist circles, and about the only thing I could find was a passing reference in a fairly whackjobby article to “radical feminists” trying to ban the book. And it is (fairly, to my mind) criticized for pulling its punches on Jo – that our independent heroine ends up married to some fat old guy. Alcott herself never married and actually never intended Jo to either, but so many girls wrote her pleading for her to marry Jo off that she decided to pay a little joke on them in the character of Professor Bhaer.

I’m sure my daughter – a strong willed, temperamental, bright, loving girl much in the manner of Jo herself – will find the 19th Century tone and misty-eyed sentimentality ridiculous when I make my attempt to force the book on her in a few years. But I love it beyond reason anyway --and maybe she'll be able to see beyond the dated language and oh-golly-gee-ness and love it too.

Banned Books Week: In the Night Kitchen

Banned Books Week: Smother the Fire and Read a Banned Book

Banned Books Week: In the Night Kitchen

Miriam Axel-Lute — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:30:00 GMT

Dreams are weird. We all know this. But it takes some discipline to recreate their weirdness in the light of day. The successfully unabashed surreality of the dreamscape in Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen is one of the many delightful things about it.

But be warned, oh faint of heart: it contains drawings of a naked kid.

The story, for those who haven't seen it, goes something like this: Little Mickey imagines that the scary noises he hears at night are coming from a mythic "Night Kitchen." He falls through the air, out of his pajamas, and into a cake being mixed by three bakers on the streets of a baking-themed city. The buildings are topped with funnels and sieves and the elevated train cars are made of bread. Mickey nearly gets baked into the cake, but makes his escape, fashions an airplane out of bread dough, soars up to the top of a skyscraper-high milk bottle, and dives in to fetch milk for the bakers.

Throughout, the characters tend to speak in chants. "I'm not the milk, and the milk's not me!" exclaims Mickey as he bursts out of the cake. "Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter! We bake cake and nothing's the matter!" recite the bakers joyfully after Mickey provides their missing ingrediant.

Like I said, weird. But fun. At least one reviewer has said she thinks adults have a harder time enjoying it than kids, who are less likely to overthink and try to find the logic in it all.

Kids also are not freaked out by a tiny little illustrated toddler penis. But that, of course, is generally what gets this book challenged or banned. That, and reportedly sometimes "offensive language," which is baffling, unless "Cock a doodle doo" becomes offensive when spoken by a triumphant naked little boy instead of a proper rooster.

If I put on the perennially in-the-gutter lens worn by our modern day Puritans, I'm sure I could read some sort of unsettling, improper vibe into the whole thing. (It's a naked boy! Pouring milk for pudgy adult men he doesn't know! Out of a phallic milk bottle! And then crowing!) And I'm sure that Sendak's coming out has only reinforced whatever twisted reflections of their own fantasies the book banners have projected onto Mickey's dream. (Confidential to them: It's completely irrelevant.)

The fact is, suspicious, nervous adults can imagine such things anywhere they look, and the only reason they feel like they can make it stick to In the Night Kitchen is because of the nudity. How sad.

Happily, children's innocent love for In the Night Kitchen and its message of facing and conquering things that go bump (and sift and sizzle) in the night has made the four-decade-old comics-style book a classic and kept it in print and widely available. Given that my daughter is starting to have a little trouble with nightmares, I think we might read it tonight.

Related Posts:

Smother the Fire and Read a Banned Book

More by this author:

10 Names to Give Your Under 5 Daughter for Her . . . You Know