Curious George is actually an ape. #RuinAChildrensBook
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nick (@vossbrink) March 25, 2014Babar is a depressing and racist colonial fantasy. #RuinAChildrensBook
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nick (@vossbrink) March 25, 2014Busytown is full of patriarchal stereotypes. #RuinAChildrensBook
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nick (@vossbrink) March 25, 2014The Lorax was published 43 years ago. #RuinAChildrensBook
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nick (@vossbrink) March 25, 2014Green Eggs and Ham is a lesson that no doesn't mean no if you keep on asking. #RuinAChildrensBook
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nick (@vossbrink) March 25, 2014Paddington Bear whitewashes his Peruvian origins. #RuinAChildrensBook
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nick (@vossbrink) March 25, 2014Let's just pretend that Dr Dolittle never goes to Africa. Holy shit is that part racist. #RuinAChildrensBook
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nick (@vossbrink) March 25, 2014Should they tell their mother? Fuck that. The kids should have called the police on the Cat in the Hat. #RuinAChildrensBook
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nick (@vossbrink) March 25, 2014The Monster at the End of This Book teaches us that triggering behavior is fun. #RuinAChildrensBook
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nick (@vossbrink) March 25, 2014Because I often zig when trending hashtag games zag,* I chose to run with this tag in the direction of things I’m noticing when I reread books for my kids. This is possibly one of the toughest parts of being a parent since it involves destroying a lot of the fond memories you had as a kid. And it involves setting your own kids up for some of the same harsh experiences.
*My six-word film plots comes to mind here as well.
Despite my critiques above, I’m reading all these to my kids still. Even Babar. Many of the books I’m actually fine with and am just being extreme with the hashtag. Green Eggs and Ham for example is obviously a lesson on not refusing food just because you’ve never tried it before. And The Monster at the End of the Book is an introduction to dramatic irony as an example of when it is actually okay to tease someone.
But yeah. Some of the others need some extra involvement to be palatable. Maybe not right now. But filed away for future reference in explaining how the world works and how a lot of those much-loved books are examples of things we’ve become more knowledgeable about now.
One I’m sad I didn’t think of at the time.