My daughter read all of Twilight. She says she still prefers Moomintroll though. I love her.
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Itās a problem at our local public library, too. The last time I took him to the library I had to set rules ahead of time that he couldnāt pick anything with a cartoon character, toy, superhero, video game or any other āspin off.ā So of course he went straight for the Berenstain Bears (which I guess were in books before cartoons, but stillā¦).
Any good recommendations for boys this age? Weāve tried some Roald Dahl, Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary books and he enjoys them, but I donāt think heās quite ready to read those on his own, and even when I read to him he complains they donāt have enough pictures. Which at age 6 I guess is a pretty reasonable complaint. Iād love to find books that model good language, tell interesting stories, AND have enough pictures to keep his interest. But my own reading memories jump straight from Danny and the Dinosaur to James and the Giant Peach, so I donāt know what kinds of good stuff there is in between.
It has absolutely gorgeous pictures and while he might need a little help with it, it isnāt a terribly long or complicated book.
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As a liberal, Iām confused.
Should I be upset at the publisher for making these sexist books?
The bookstore for purchasing them to sell to kids?
Or the kid and mother for getting books banned (in that store)?
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If these were books about how to build awesome LEGO stuff or told good stories or used LEGO in a creative way, that would be awesome.
But theyāre not. These are throwaway books with minimal, nonsensical stories told in the style of a 7th grade B student with a so-so imagination. Hereās an example of one of the better ones. Flip through the sample pages and youāll see it doesnāt even have anything to do with LEGO aside from the brand tie-in.
Also, get off my lawn.
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As a Liberal, you should be upset about everything.
Oh, and hate yourself tooā¦
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Man, I wish Iād had advice on āHow To Survive A Crushā early on. As late as grad school, I had no fuckinā idea.
No, no. I agree. I mis-read your original intent in your message. I agree that most of the Lego tie-in stuff is crap, butā¦ it does get my son to at least try to read them. Those and Star Wars books.
I still think the Lego bricks are awesome, and am having fun creating new stuff with him.
Wow, feels like this went off topic from the get-go.
As Constance said, the main issue wasnāt that the books got yanked, it was that her daughter was upset because the books were espousing ideas that were upsetting to her and decided to take some action. Because she was upset and decided to do something about it, Constance was (justifiably) proud of her daughter.
Of course she was - her daughter emphatically demonstrated that the values that Constance had striven to instill in her daughter had found fertile soil.
I build stuff (software, furniture, robots) and restore stuff (old mechanical musical instruments, clocks, etc) and I am also the proud parent of a daughter. As she was growing up, I endeavored to instill in her the value of being able to understand mechanical things and build things she dreamed up. I was never prouder than when she chose to go to the hardware store with me instead of visiting the pink isle at Walmart. Was really proud when she chose an old clunker jeep for her first car and got her hands greasy getting it on the road. Now sheās studying engineering at college.
I am proud because my daughter demonstrably absorbed the teachings I felt were useful while rejecting the ones I felt were useless (pink princess crap).
My guess is that Constance feels exactly the same about her daughterās reaction to blatantly sexist books.
Tribes. We are never prouder than when our kids demonstrate that they are members of the tribe to which we belong. On the flip side, nothing will drive a parent crazier than watching a kid demonstrate interest in a tribe that they abhor (and donāt the kids just know that) 
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Yeah, and if you RTF posts by me, youāll see that I acknowledge that. But Iām also not the person who came up with the headline ā8-year-old gets sexist kidsā books yanked from bookstore.ā Not once did I say or imply that the kid did anything remotely wrong. Sheās a kid. And she was justifiably offended. And itās great that she spoke up, and wonderful that she was encouraged to do so.
But though the loss of these specific books may be no noticeable detriment to society or the world of literature, this is still an unfortunate outcome, for the reasons I outlined at stupid length above.
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Didnāt mean to come off insulting to you with the āRFTAā language; I apologize if I did. I didnāt see where you noted that, but I believe you when you say you did.
I still donāt agree with you that this was an unfortunate outcome though, for reasons I have probably also outlined sufficiently tediouslyā¦
All three of them bug me. (Well, really, the kid didnāt do anything wrong, and honestly neither did the mother, though I would have handled it differently.) Itās not brain surgery here. The publisher is making a profit off sexism aimed at kids, and thatās a problem. The bookstore management (initially) sees potential profit in stocking these books, without apparently wondering if this is the sort of material they really want to be selling (other than thinking ākidsā books = profitā and leaving it at that), and thatās another problem. Both of them point to a larger problem. Making and selling books for a profit isnāt in and of itself a problem. But the fact that thereās enough of a market for books like this points to a phenomenon we know all too well: institutional sexism and societal sexism that inhabits all levels of discourse and affects all ages.
The thing is, some of our greatest works of literature (not just these two bound stacks of bumwipe) are steeped in mores and attitudes that have been, at one time or another, deemed socially unacceptable by one group of people or another. And removing those works wholesale from the marketplace does not solve the problems presented by that conflict. Even worse, it sets the precedent for the removal of any politically inconvenient works by the current powers-that-be (or by the future ones). Iām pretty sure we all understand that.
Nobodyās hurt by the loss of these books, except for the dipshit who wrote them and the double-dipshit who published them. But in my opinion, the overall point should not be āif you see books for sale or lend that you think are awful, you can always complain and maybe theyāll go away.ā That is not, in my opinion, a good lesson.
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Well, thatās obviously okay. I knew from the start that this would probably turn into a religious argument of First Amendment Purists vs Defenders Against Sexism, and itās one of the rare-ish occasions when Iād be forced to choose a side between two parties of which Iād normally consider myself a stalwart standard-bearer.
I know youāre not arguing in bad faith, and I greatly appreciate that.
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Any good recommendations for boys this age? Weāve tried some Roald Dahl, Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary books and he enjoys them, but I donāt think heās quite ready to read those on his own, and even when I read to him he complains they donāt have enough pictures. Which at age 6 I guess is a pretty reasonable complaint. Iād love to find books that model good language, tell interesting stories, AND have enough pictures to keep his interest. But my own reading memories jump straight from Danny and the Dinosaur to James and the Giant Peach, so I donāt know what kinds of good stuff there is in between.
Itās hard. The books that are good to read to them arenāt usually the same as those that they will enjoy reading on their own. Toys Go Out and the sequels are pretty good. The Jenny and the Cat Club books are wonderful (and vary in complexity). There are some editions of Roald Dahl that have lots of illustrations (making them ābetterā according to my son). I am very partial to Ellenās Lion.
My sonās own āsolutionā is to read comics/graphic novels. He adores the Asterix books, and likes Lucky Luke (and used to like Tintin). He plowed through Bone last summer with zeal. Of course these books, because of their format, only model discourse, not description ā but he loves them, and the discourse, plots, vocabulary is not moronic.
It would be nice, however, if we could go to the library or to his class and be directed towards other good books. My mother was a childrenās publisher, and I know that there are many quality picture books that come out every year ā books that are great for six year olds, but thatās not what our kids seem to be directed towards, alas!
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Just abandon him at the library. Maybe with some sandwiches and a drink. Pick him up in a few hours.
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I find your lack of Godwin-flecked rage disturbingā¦
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i donāt know, angry mob with pitchforks took down the french aristocracyā¦just sayingā¦
Itād be worse if it were in the boysā edition.
yep because if you see something you donāt like you should put your head down, keep your mouth shut, and do nothing about it. definitely donāt tell other people, DEFINITELY donāt tell people on the internet. and sure as hell donāt complain about it. because people voicing their opinions on something they find wrong is CENSORSHIP!
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Yāall are arguing pretty passionately, and I sat this one out until now. Iām usually somewhere in the middle on everything (or try to be) so hereās my two sides of it:
On the one hand, itās a bookstore removing a crappy book after receiving a complaint about the content of the book. No harm, no foul, maybe. Itās not like a government official came in and forcefully removed the books, right?
On the other hand, Iām reminded of the number of books, like Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that are removed from shelves after public outcry. Thankfully, I went to a high school which, despite being in a small town in a highly Baptist area, had nearly every frequently-banned book on its shelves. And as an aside, i think Iād be a slightly different person if Iād never been allowed to read Huckleberry Finn. Itās mind-opening if you let it (and you donāt get tripped up on that one word).
I can imagine the conversation weāre having here would be veeeeeery different if a kid from a Baptist family was successful at getting Heather Has Two Mommies removed from a bookstore.
Now, I agree the this-book-is-for-boys and this-book-is-for-girls mentality is crapā¦I donāt agree that removing them from shelves is the answer.
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