Book rant

[mahogany]

When did crap become associated with fun, in our society? We were at the library on the weekend, and unbeknowst to me, my dh selected a couple of books for the kids and added them to the pile. These are books with no merit - literary or otherwise. I spoke to my kids about these books when I found out, and said that they could read them this time, but we would not be taking out more of the same. To which my son, and later dh said, "Well, it's okay to have fun, sometimes." In my opinion, this is the most bogus, most ridiculous argument ever. We're talking about children that love reading. My kids derive immense pleasure from books, and I reminded them of this, and they agreed, and they dropped the subject. My dh on the other hand persisted, so I asked him, "Why is it necessary to introduce books that are the equivalent of CocaCola for the brain into our home? Our children love reading good books. What exactly is the point in introducing books that aren't going to nourish their minds?" He didn't really have an answer.

The thing is, that I don't believe that my dh is unique in this. There seems to be a societal belief that in order for something to be fun, it should be frivolous or silly, or bad for our health, or reckless etc. Where did this belief come from? It's so messed up, and yet, I see it everywhere.

Comments

yes!

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

my daughter has a post-college reading level, at 9. what does she keep bringing home? hannah montana books, ffs. i have tried to kill this, but the husband is like, "what? why? be happy they're reading!" GRRRR.

Re: yes!

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

That's EXACTLY the stuff I'm talking about. It's reassuring to know that somemone else shares my pain :-)

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

Perhaps.

Man, that's a depressing thought. It simply does not compute for me.

Are things any better in Sicily?

[tracied.livejournal.com]

I look at it this way. I am reading them the good stuff (oh please let Ben read on his own one day....), and am providing a rich literary background for them. But we also have some crap. By that I mean things like Captain Underpants etc. I want them to be able to tell the difference, see the difference and understand why the crap is crap. And form their own literary opinions. But that said another reason we have crap is because Ben's reading level is so low and his frustration so high that I will give him graphic novel/comic type things or "potty humour boy stuff" to help him get over that hump.

If I may ask, what was the crap?

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

For E - Some sort of fluffy glitter fairy series
For N - Choose your own adventure books

See, the thing is that neither N nor E finds reading difficult or frustrating. Both of them are capable of reading, and of reading quality. It makes no sense to me to introduce kids like that to crap, when they're perfectly happy reading good stuff. I'd like to believe that I'm not a complete ogre. The kids get to read stuff like Tin Tin and Asterix comics, which might not be complete garbage, but aren't broccoli for the mind either. They're probably closer to toast - fairly benign, with an occassional smattering of tasty parts, but ultimately unsuitable as the basis of a diet.

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

But I loved Choose Your Own Adventure stories as a kid! Believe it or not, they taught me partially how to write fiction, because I learned to think about the consequences of actions taken in the plot.

[tara-incognito.livejournal.com]

Ditto for my husband and me. And I read at a college level in elementary school, too. No lasting harm was done by those.

However, mahogany, I share your concerns about quality reading material. I've been reading the Peter Rabbit books to my 4-month-old, fhs. He's 4 months old!

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

Ahh, Peter Rabbit. E still enjoys those stories. I was better able to articulate the source of my aggravation below. It's more the attitude of garbage=fun, and the fact that it was an adult that chose to introduce these that made me upset.

[tara-incognito.livejournal.com]

That's right. I'd made note that that's what your post was about but lost it to the winds of "not the CYOA books!"

I have to keep a watch on my husband for the very aggravation. We just haven't had the opportunity to really have that conversation yet. Some kinds of fun really are harmless, even if it's not readily apparent. And some folks just don't care. It's frustrating if you are one who does.

[freakykitten.livejournal.com]

I guess it depends on what you call frivolous - I've always enjoyed science fiction, as long as it's well written. If it's the subject that's the problem for you, I'd have to disagree - all sorts of subject matter can lead to interesting thoughts and statements, and stories of all sorts can have positive morals...

I dunno. What sort of stuff do they usually read?

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

It's not the subject that bugged me. The kids read and enjoy a full spectrum of books. Well, that's not quite true. For some reason N doesn't particularly enjoy animal stories, but other than that, he reads everything. I think I've managed to articulate the source of my annoyance with the entire thing in my response to Random Dreams. I was annoyed because an adult introduced these books into the children's reading diet; the children did not choose these themselves. And it's not so much the books that aggravated me, but the attitude of "In order for something to be fun it must be completely lacking in substance", that was reinforced, that really has me grinding my teeth. Does that make sense?

[freakykitten.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, I see now. I agree - if it wasn't something the kids chose themselves, there's an issue there. And the "fun = junk" thing is wrong, too. That would get me going, too. I'm more interested in children figuring out what THEY think is fun, and doing that - whatever it may be.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

What you see as non-frivolous reading, other people may see as stage-mothering. I'm not saying they're right, just that they might have a different threshold of how they challenge their kids. There's a cycle of parenting that wobbles about every 8 years between permissiveness and restrictiveness, insofar as parents lean towards letting their kids choose what they want to do/wear/study and then the next cohort of parents have very clear ideas of what their children SHOULD be doing/wearing/studying based on watching the slackers that went before, and the next group swing back. Fundamentally, a lot of people think kids should grow up untrammelled (because they're delusional about just how horrible undisciplined children can be) and a lot of other people think that children need to be molded and helped to achieve all that they can be (even though planty of studies have shown that the majority of children's behavior patterns, at least with speech and learning, is learned from their peers rather than from their parents or teachers.)

This isn't a new thing. Shakespeare was writing for the *Queen*, and what she requested was "The Merry Wives Of Windsor"... and this from a man who had just finished writing "Hamlet". Dude. That never fails to make me cringe. Can you imagine how he must've felt?

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

The way it usually works in our home is that each week, I'll choose about thirty or so works of fiction. N and to a lesser degree E choose their own non-fiction based on subject that currently interest them. although lately I've been grabbing biographies and putting them in front of the kids. Of the book pile that we've chosen, the kids will probably only read about 2/3 of the books. From the books, the do read, they're able to recognize authors that they've enjoyed and choose those books by the same authors in the future. I don't think I would have been as annoyed if it were the children choosing these books. But that wasn't the case. It was my better half, an adult, adding a couple of books to the pile because he thought the kids needed some "fun" reading material.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid I liked reading crap. I don't know why, but I did. I was an avid reader -- about a book a day or thereabouts, but many of them were crap books, so that's not so impressive. Hardy Boys books take like, what, an hour to read? My parents did something similar to what you're doing, only they had a list and at least half my books had to come from that list. They didn't test me on them or anything, but they just thought I should at least be exposed to good lit. I'm glad they did that, but I sure did enjoy reading junk.

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

I liked reading crap as a kid, too. I still do, in fact. I remember a point where my appetite for Archie comics was insastiable. Thanks to my exposure to good literature from an early age, though, I never lost my interest in good quality reading material, either. I think most avid readers have read their fair share of garbage mixed in with the good stuff, and I expect that my kids will too. I figure that as long as what I personally introduce them to is quality, then the crappola that they choose on their own won't be too harmful.

[nightynight.livejournal.com]

I think your last sentence here totally covers it. You do a lot in the first place by taking them to the library, period. May I just say bravo to you first for that? Bravo! (said the librarian)! I absolutely think that if you lay the foundation, they'll find their way back to quality after fugues into Captain Underpants-land.

I would have been annoyed by the throwing of 'fun' books on top, too. It seems to kind of be a passive statement that should have been made directly to you, prior to even making the trip there, you know? I know that you know that your kids will read and choose crappy books as they grow and while they're this young you have a choice to expose them to stuff that's not garbage. And hello! Quality books for kids can BE silly and fun! I mean, come on, Frank Baum, the Wizard of Oz series! I don't even know where to start with the examples there. Thing is with dh's choices, all reading evaluation is extremely subjective. I mean, consider this: what's 'fun' for some kids scares the crap out of others. There are children who are terrified of Lemony Snicket books.

If you want to consider books within the larger environment of all media, you don't let your kids watch garbage on TV either, and it's your choice until they're old enough to be at home alone. I don't know if you're familiar with the bunnicular nightmare that is Max and Ruby, but I'm yet to meet a parent that can stand those two stupid &*(&(^ rabbits. But they're silly! And fun! And teach your kids that being irritatiing is a virtue!

Now. A tangent. When I was a teenager, I got my first job at a library reshelving books (I recommend this to parents a lot who are thinking of asking their teenagers to get jobs): what a fantastic job that is. I know it sounds awful, but I LOVED doing this in a public library. I found literally hundreds of treasures to read. But get this: given my age demographic, I also made sure I found EVERY REFERENCE TO SEX I COULD FIND IN THAT LIBRARY because I really wasn't getting a proper education and I was very confused by the whole thing. We didn't have proper education on a) the female body and b) sexuality. When you become a librarian, you meet people who've NEVER ENTERED A LIBRARY IN THEIR LIVES. Honestly, I'm like, HOW DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING AT ALL. Some of these people have university degrees! Their undergrads did not require the library! (mine didn't - I did mostly computer modeling and field work).

Anyway, I think screening out crap is a fine approach. Good books CAN BE AWESOME FUN. And your kids can determine fun. Science can be presented in a silly manner! You are not robbing your kids of silliness and fun by giving them good stuff to read! You're doing a kickass job, as usual.