What do you get out of a book?

I recently read the article The Worst Canonical Kids Books and What to Replace Them With by Emily Temple. My first reaction to this article was extreme offense. I love most of the books that were slated to be replaced according to the author. Like the author said a couple of the titles I do have attached fond memories from my childhood. For me, reading was a time that I could get one on one attention from my parents, sit on their lap and share with them. It didn't really matter what we were reading: the funnies, mom's text books (we heard a lot of law cases), or children's books. It was the fact that we were spending time with our parents.

So I took a minute to review the article again and reading the author's reasons for removing the books. While I understand where she is coming from with some of these titles, she and I had totally different perspectives from these books.

Here are my thoughts on the following books.

The Pokey Little Puppy

What Emily said: This book is profoundly boring and pointless. There’s no moral to speak of, or even internal logic other than lip-service repetition. Also, what kind of parenting is going on in this book? Anyway, it’s terrible.

What I said: Yes the story is long, so paraphrase it. One of the themes in this book is that it's okay to stop and look around. The pokey puppy saw so much more then his brothers. However, if you spend all of your time lollygagging you will lose out in the end so be sure to know when it is okay to take leisure time and when to be prompt.


Alexander and the Horrible, No Good ,Very Bad Day

What Emily said: What a whiner, this Alexander. The whole book is a chronicle of the small indignities of an average child’s life. In the end, instead of a lesson about personal responsibility Alexander’s mother gives him a shrug and a “some days are like that.” True enough, and kind of amazing in its nihilism, but…

What I said: Everyone has a bad day and no matter how hard you try, sometimes it just does not get any better. But don't worry because there is always tomorrow! And this is a really funny story.

Love you, Forever

What Emily said: Possibly the creepiest children’s book of all time. It starts off OK: the mother loves her baby. She loves him even when he’s a toddler and a pain. But then you realize she’s sneaking into his room every night, crawling across the floor and rocking him, even when he’s a teenager (shudder). Then, when he’s a grownup, she drives to his house, climbs in his window, and gathers him into her arms, singing to him. 1. Where’s his wife? 2. No. No no no. No. You don’t even get a happy ending when the stalker-mom dies, because you find our her son is doing the same thing to his daughter. The worst.

What I said: This is a very contested book. I have always loved it. I feel that it shows what a love a of parent truly should be. However, I never took it that the parent would literally drive to their child's house, sneak in their room and rock them in their sleep. Instead I took what the parent did to mean that as you grow older your relationship changes but that love you have for your child never does.

The Runaway Bunny

What Emily said: Admittedly, there is something lovely about the surrealistic images and illustrations in this book — the little bunny finding things to transform into to escape his mother, the mother finding things to transform into to catch him. I like it when he’s a boat, and when she’s a tree. BUT the moral seems to be anti-independence: you can never escape your mother, so why not just sit at home and let her feed you? Not exactly the message that the youth of America need right now.

What I said: The Runaway Bunny has never been one of my favorite books but again, I feel that it is saying that no matter where your child goes, what they become, or what they do as a parent you will always love them and be there for them.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

What Emily said: Putting aside how boring this book is, there’s that message. If you give in to your gluttony, it’s fine. If you overeat until you’re in pain, don’t worry. One day you’ll wake up as a beautiful butterfly and everything will be fine!


What I said: I always took this book literally and thought it was about a caterpillar eating so it could become big enough and strong enough to become a butterfly.

The Ugly Duckling

What Emily said: Seriously, we need to stop reading this to children. The Ugly Duckling is born different, and is teased and persecuted his whole life, no matter where he goes. Finally, he decides to commit suicide by swan, but they won’t kill him, because he is pretty like them. Then he is SO HAPPY. So basically: if you’re ugly, don’t worry. You’ll probably grow up to be beautiful! If not, though, you should probably kill yourself.

What I said: I always felt that it was more about the inner struggle you have and triumphing over diversity. It didn't occur to me that it was saying you could only be happy if you look like everyone else. Also, for me personally, as I was going though tough times at school, I used think of this story to get me through.

The Princess and the Pea

What Emily said: Well, obviously, real princesses are SO delicate that they’d feel a pea under 20 mattresses. And only the most delicate ladies are worthwhile marriage material for princes. That all aside, there’s not even a twist to this one. Woof.

What I said: There is a strong backlash about being a princess and what that means. I personally think it is okay if a child wants to be a princess. Let them. Because the next day they will want to be the pirate or the prince. Why can't you switch the gender role and play the prince and the pea. Be creative talk about it! Share

If you Give a Mouse a cookie

What Emily said: Never be kind to anyone, kids. If you do, they’ll bleed you dry.

What I said: It is a cause and effect story and a fun tale to tell. If you think about it put yourself in the kids role and your kid in the mouses role. Don't you see the similarities.

Rainbow Fish

What Emily said: Don’t be taken in by the shininess. The message of this one is that in order to have friends, you have to pry off parts of yourself — in the case of the Rainbow Fish, parts of your physical body — and give them away. Because being popular is more important than maintaining your selfhood! Because in order to be happy you have to look just like everybody else and everybody else has to look just like you! Yay?

What I said: This is not one of my favorite stories, however; I feel that it teaches a very important lesson about greed and selfishness, which today's society is really struggling with. In the story the fish is lonely because he is prideful in his beauty and unwilling to share of it. He doesn't want to play with others, he just wants to be admired by them. Only when he realizes that friendship is not about one person admiring the other but sharing and playing together does he become happy.

Curious GeorgeWhat Emily said: Does it strike anyone else as kind of upsetting that Curious George was kidnapped from Africa by the man with the yellow hat? Then he gives George food and drugs and lets him get incarcerated and finally puts him in the zoo. Is curiosity bad or exciting? What about kidnapping? I don’t know.

What I said: I totally agree with the author! Except the new Curious George has been re-imagined and he is more of a child or pet than a specimen to be looked at and observed.



I am grateful that I read this article because I was able to look at these classics through different eyes and I am glad that she gave alternate books to read because I now have even more book titles to read to the kids. However, I believe that we sometimes think to hard about a story and that we should just lighten up and read to our children.


*Every thing that Emily said is copied and pasted from the linked article in the first paragraph.