Banned Books

It may be just my impression, but it seems that back in the day, children's literature was intended to prepare them for the big, scary world. Stories were full of child-eating witches, sad, hungry kids, mean step parents etc. These days, stories are more about modeling good behavior, self help and how to deal with emotions.  Who knows whether this is a good thing or not.  I have had occasion to think about the issue because a month ago, my parents sent us a box containing some of my favorite childhood books. I could just blame the ensuing fiasco on them, but since I chose the books and actually started reading them, it's hard to avoid at least partial responsibility. I should have been more suspecting given that the relatively benign Ant and Bee books contained a story where Bee called Ant "stupid" (then Ant got cross! and Ant ran away!).  Since we never had a problem with Matthew calling people "stupid" we didn't worry about it too much and in any case, the above interaction is closer to real life than the Teletubbies.

And then there was Mr Mischief. My father used to travel to London and bring home Mr A. Mazing monster books and Mr Men books. The monsters do things like eat dirty cars or golf balls, grow too big and escape from confinement. The Mr Men books contain characters with some sort of limiting social problem that they learn to deal with - ie Mr Nosy, Mr Bump (bumps into everything), Mr Uppity, Mr Tall etc. Most of these stories are about dealing with unforseen challenges, difficult behavior and usually come to some resolution. The solutions are typically not something out of a positive parenting book though, and examples of appalling interpersonal behavior abound. I loved all these books and they have been a big hit with Mr Matthew.

Matthew's first year of preschool has been a challenge for all involved. At 3 yrs old, I pick this child up from school, ask him how his day went and have him tell me, "Mommy, I don't want to tell you anything!" There have been frequent, awkward conversations with his teacher at pick up time....  Mr Mischief did nothing to alleviate the situation.  In addition to the usual shenanigans, he started taking every opportunity to tell his teachers that he was, "looking for mischief!" Needless to say, this did not go over well and prompted yet more carefully probing questions from his teacher.  Wouldn't you know it but Mr Mischief is his favorite story. The fact that all the mischief came back to haunt Mr Mischief seems to have blown right by Mr Matthew.

This is probably foolish, but I have a problem confiscating books even from preschoolers. The new deal is that if he wants to read about mischief he needs to behave at school (because that makes sense, of course..). It might not be a bad idea to quietly put away some of these books since lately, if you tell him or ask him about anything he doesn't want to deal with he now says, "Rubbish!" (courtesy of an old Thomas the Train story - the newer ones tend to be sanitized). I haven't heard about that at school yet, thankfully. We are going to start him at Ladera Church Preschool next month which looks to be a better fit for him. Regardless, I am elated to think that soon I will never have to pick him up from Good Neighbor ever again!