|
I remember really loving Island of the Blue Dolphins as a kid because it was about a girl learning how to survive all alone on an island, but re-reading a synopsis now it's a depressing look at how white hunters and missionaries wiped out indigenous cultures. The book ends on a bittersweet but hopeful note if I remember right, completely ignoring how the real-world woman the story was inspired from died of dysentery a few months after being taken from the island and was buried under a Christian name instead of whatever her true name was. Not that anyone could ask her, because by that point everyone else the missionaries had "rescued" had also died and she was the last survivor of her entire culture and language. Anyway my 5th grade teacher was not at all interested in teaching our class about the many crimes inflicted upon entire communities and only cared that we took the books at face value. I also remember him getting upset at me pointing out how Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes was about a real girl who'd died because of the atomic bombs in WWII and compared it to spoiling a Harry Potter book. gently caress you Mr. Witty Cornwind Evil posted:Toddlers do do lots of stupid things. There's not even any real malice in them, because they don't understand that concept yet. But even so, everything Fudge does falls under 'This can be fixed' or 'This can be water under the bridge' or 'This can be taken back'. But committing to swallowing a small turtle, especially since the kid never gives any sort of reason, not even a "I wanted to try to do it"? That's not a 'can be taken back' thing. But you're right. While I can't expect the parents to have predicted their kid might do that (You can predict that kids want to play with matches, it's a lot harder to predict 'This kid will eat his brother's pet...just because'), they probably should have punished him, not rewarded him for being 'all better' once the turtle is extracted (IIRC, they give him castor oil, and milk of magnesia, and prune juice, so I'm guessing they had him poop the turtle out) and then giving the older brother a dog as a "Sorry" consolation. I chalk it up to the general attitude that if an animal isn't a cat or a dog, it isn't considered a "real" pet and therefore its suffering is unimportant or even comedic. I remember lots of sitcoms around this same era where there'd be canned audience laughter because the hamster got stuck in a freezer or the cat ate the bird or the fish got flushed. The parents were lovely for constantly enabling Fudge's worst behaviors but ultimately they are just one example of an unfortunately common plotine. Well, obviously the details aren't common, but you get what I mean. Anyway the Wayside series was cool from what I remember, pretty hosed up that near the end of the third book a woman nearly kills a baby (but then she changes her mind so it's okay). I had no idea a fourth book got releaaed in 2020 though
|
#
¿
Feb 26, 2024 20:15
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2024 07:50 |
|
|
Recently I remembered a book about a school setting up a nativity play and somehow all the actors ended up being about half a dozen kids all from the same family who had a reputation for being troublemakers, and at some point it's revealed they live in a lovely house with neglectful parents - I might be conflating it with a similar story but I think the younger kids all slept inside dresser drawers because there weren't enough beds. I can't recall if any of the other characters actually did anything to help the kids out though, or if it was one of those stories where the only lesson the protagonist learns is that bullies are people too. When going through some old boxes I never unpacked I also found a story about a one-legged bird at a beach, Sandy of Laguna. If I remember right it was inspired by a photo of a real bird but otherwise totally fictional. I don't remember much else about the story itself and only reason I bring it up is because the illustrator is credited as Ben Garrison. I doubt it's the same guy as the political comics artist (the art styles are completely different, though I guess a lot can change in 20-30 years) but I definitely did a double-take when I read the names on the cover. MiracleFlare fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Apr 24, 2024 |
|
#
¿
Apr 24, 2024 23:07
|
|
|
coronatae posted:I remember when Out of the Dust was published and became available in our school library. It's an unusual style, entirely blank verse, about a 14 year old girl living in the Texas panhandle during the dust bowl. It's also gruesome in places, since the girl's pregnant mother gets set on fire in a kitchen accident. The whole thing is available as a pdf if you google it. Highly recommend. I can't believe they had us reading that as elementary school kids, but I guess children are resilient and they wanted us to learn Texas history. Straight up the only thing I remember about it is how graphically the burns are described and how everyone blames the protagonist for killing her mom and brother because she was the one who threw the kerosene outside. She's even forced to be her dying mom's caretaker despite her own horrific burns on her hands, because dad's too busy getting drunk. I do not know how my teacher thought this was a good idea to read to a bunch of 9-10 year olds but since he never finished reading it that's where my memory of it ends. Erin M. Fiasco posted:The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, by Barbara Robinson. I had no idea until just now that it was from the 70s, and New Zealand. It was a really fun one. That's the one, thank you!
|
|
#
¿
Apr 26, 2024 09:43
|
|
|
There was a Give Yourself Goosebumps book where you found some weird food in an abandoned fridge that could make you small or giant... but the only ending I actually remember is the early one you get if you choose to hide inside the fridge to get away from a bully. No magic here, you just get trapped in the fridge and slowly suffocate to death. That was the first time I ever learned that this was an unfortunately recurring problem with old fridges.
MiracleFlare fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Apr 27, 2024 |
|
#
¿
Apr 27, 2024 21:33
|
|