Children’s Books

The first book we regularly read to Abby was “Goodnight Moon”, a “classic.” Honestly, I had no idea why it’s a classic. When I first read it, I thought, what’s so special about this? There’s barely any text, and what’s there isn’t complicated. I could write this.

It’s only when I read worse books that I realized how good it is, in comparison. As Henry mentioned to me, there’s a flow to it, and after reading bad books, I realized how difficult that is to achieve.

With that, for no particular reason, I present to you my favorite and least favorite children’s books of what we’ve read so far:

Faves:

• C Is For Coco. I love this book. It has great flow, and none of it is forced. You know, like how when any song rhymes “fire” with “desire”, it’s lazy and forced. This book isn’t like that; no forced rhymes, and interesting content. I love it; my favorite children’s book at the moment.
• Goodnight Moon. For the reason I mentioned, good flow. I think we had another one of her books before Abby destroyed it, but that was less compelling. But yeah, when I pay attention to my voice when I read this, it’s really interesting. Just, the words to lead you to a soft place, ready for sleep. I dunno, it’s cool.
• Most of Sandra Boynton’s books. Her flow is a little less good, sometimes forced (e.g. “A cow says moo / A sheep says baa / Three singing pigs say la la la”. Sorry, but that last line is lame), but I like her sense of humor. Like, the first time I read But Not The Hippopotamus, I nearly died. Great upshot. And her drawings grow on you. I particularly like the drawings for Barnyard Dance. They’re whimsical and funny.
• Books with lists. Simply because Abby likes them and she learns a lot that way.

Least faves:

• The Foot Book. A Dr. Seuss book that I only mildly dislike. It’s not even dislike, I’m just confused, because some pages, there are words on the bottom left and top right arranged in such a way that it’s unclear what the proper reading order is. The rhyming doesn’t offer clarity because every phrase ends with “feet”. I don’t like being confused when reading a children’s book. It’s not good for my ego.
• Going To Bedtime Book. I think that’s the name, but it’s the lone Sandra Boynton book I despise. It’s because of one plot element. They’re all getting ready for bed, they put on their pjs, they brush their teeth. Then comes: “And when the moon is on the rise / they all go up / to exercise”. That makes zero sense whatsoever. Why on earth would you exercise after you’ve gotten ready for bed and are in your PJs? And it’s not just stretching or calisthenics – one character is working out with a barbell. Yeah, let’s get all sweaty in our PJs before we sleep. Rage. Maybe it’s absurd to expect realism in a story where the characters are anthropomorphic animals in a genre where cows jump over moons, but still. It angers me.
• The I Love [animal] series. We have I Love Kittens and I Love Ponies. I hate these books. Number one, they’re super short, so kind of a ripoff. Number two, I don’t like the artwork. Number three, there’s no flow. Worse of all, the plot is just random. Look, I get that they’re children’s books. But even children’s books build to something. They go through the alphabet, or colors, or something or other. This book is literally just random things in no particular order. Each book ends with “but I love my [animal] most of all when…” and seriously, the last thing is utterly random, it’s not like the most cute or compelling thing an animal does, it’s like, “But I love my pony most of all when he chews oats.” Huh??? That’s the climax??? I seriously need to write a competing series that either does it right or just makes fun of this series. Like my I Love Ponies will start with “I think my pony is all right when he saves me from a burning barn.” And I’ll end with “But I love my pony most of all when he breathes.”
• It’s OK To Be Different. I’m not positive if that’s the title, but each page is a sentence of the form “It’s OK to be …” And you know, I’m all for that. Accepting who you are and tolerance are good things. Great things. There are just two little things that bother me.One, there’s a page that (and Jieun disagrees with my interpretation here) seems to promote same-sex parents (“It’s OK to have different mommies / It’s OK to have different daddies”). It’s not even that I’m necessarily against that, I’m just angry that they’re injecting politics into a kids book. It’s just not necessary.

  More troubling, one page says “It’s OK to eat macaroni in the bathtub.” This just completely confuses me. Most obviously, because it’s not OK to eat macaroni in the bathtub. At all. I can’t imagine a single scenario where it is OK. But why is this even in the book? It’s OK to have different skin colors, be short or tall, whatever, of course that makes sense. I’m even fine with saying it’s OK to have an imaginary friend. But how eating macaroni in the bathtub fits in this book is beyond me. I’m sorry, I just cannot support this book.