Kiddie P*rn

I know, I know, it's not really right to go with the shock value title. But it is how I always think of these books. And, to be clear, I'm talking about more p*rn (yes, I have to sue the weird spam sort of spelling because I seem to have freaked out the software) in the sense of pandering to our basest desires, really, so for, say, harried mothers p*rn might be Elizabeth Berg, while for 7-year-old girls it might be The Cobble Street Cousins. Cynthia Rylant, who wrote this series along with about a billion other kids' book series (Henry & Mudge, Poppleton—truly excellent exploits of a kind and nervous pig who is friends with a llama), as well as others too numerous to name, has no shame about giving the people what they want. And when the people want little girls who get to live in their own private attic space (!), above a flower shop run by their pretty young aunt (!!), while their parents go off on a world-wide tour to perform ballet (!!!), well, the whole thing goes on in that vein. There is everything, in this fictional world, that many (not all, certainly) little girls obsess about: cookies, tea parties, pretty little things, nice but safe young men, special talents, etc etc. And I identify, I do. I know what it's like to yearn for that particular comfort that is offered by someone giving you exactly what you want, even (or especially) when that doesn't challenge or stretch you in any way. And the sweetness of the world is so evident. Both my daughters were transfixed by the tiny dollhouse-like world these books created, and I can't explain why some part of me (a very, very small, part) feels somewhat hesitant about them. It's certainly not pap, nor is it the automoton-like facistic niceness that is regurgitated all over the page in the Strawberry Shortcake books (God I DETEST Blueberry Muffin, I detest all of them) or the My Little Pony Books. Those books seem to make sweetness into a fondant of some kind, that is suppose to be spread over little girls, shutting them up into a sugary tomb of niceness. But even in these really good Cousins books there is something that tugs at me slightly uncomfortably, when they come up in the reading cycle. It's probably unfair of me. They do bring great, great joy to my girls, and I love them for that, and I admire their...purity is the only real name I can come up with for it. But still. There's something.

What they're reading now
Child No. 1: Alice, Let's Eat! by Calvin Trillin (she reads it over and over, it just tickles her)
Child No. 2: George and Martha Tons of Fun by James Marshall (what an excellent book this is!)