Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Inducing rage on your Tuesday morning.

Quick post.

Last week, I posted about what I considered the best feminist children's book ever.

This week I'm taking you in the opposite direction, as I have caught wind of what could possibly be the worst book to get your little girl (or boy).  It's called Maggie Goes On A Diet.  It's about a little fat girl who goes on a diet to fit into a pretty pink dress and becomes popular and plays some soccer.

Can we get a big, collective, face palm right now?

It's about a 14-year-old girl, but the book is aimed at the 4-7 age bracket.  BRING EM YOUNG.  Let's look at some of the problematic messages:

Thinness is the ticket to popularity.
Only thin people are athletic.
You are valued for your appearance.

The comments and tags that are going up on the Amazon site for this page are heartening though.  It looks like people are getting that this is a craptacular lesson to be sending  to little kids.  I somehow think this book isn't going to be doing any great amount of sales.

I don't mind saying, for anyone who does buy this for their kids, I hope something very large and pointy falls on them from a great height.

Myself?  I wouldn't be caught dead.  I'd rather read my kids "Go The Fuck to Sleep"

It'd be less damaging in the long run.

8 comments:

  1. That really is troubling... Aimed at 4-7?!?!

    Just horrible.

    Samuel L. Jackson is at least kinder than that!

    *shudders at thought of 4 year old on diet*

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  2. Are you saying I should stop production on my teen-focused book "Little Annie Rexia and her vampire boyfriend, Bo Lemic"?
    Drat.
    I also have a Dr. Seuss style book, "Ugly People are Evil so Be Pretty and Not so Shitty." Should I stop recording the audio version? Aaaarrrggghh moral quandaries!
    What kind if vile self-loathing person would write that book? Unless...maybe it's a forward thinking Therapist/Psychologist!

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  3. This is just like the one thing that stands out to me that I did NOT like about the Disney movie "Tangled." It's a great story, told well. But the one thing that really pissed me off was a line Mother Goethel sings to Rapunzel. "And I believe, getting kinda chubby." Basically saying, "Stay in this tower because the world is a cruel place and you look like you're putting on some weight, so no one will like you."

    Or did I take that too far?

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  4. Wow, that's about the worst case of female self-loathing I've heard about yet. I felt similar when the Little Mermaid came on the scene. A girl gives up her home and her kick ass mermaid tail to live above the water for a cute boy.

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  5. Did it show the little girl with her finger down her throat and caffeine pills by the dozen?

    I really dislike most of the messages sent to my kids that don't come from her mother or I.

    Andie = great mom, reason #38

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  6. Someone thought this would be good to publish?!

    Pearl

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  7. oh no they diiiin't! wow. i don't know why this surprises me. god damn, the world can be such a disgusting place.

    speaking of that, Go The Fuck to Sleep had me rolling with laughter, to the point of tears, when I read it Barnes and Noble a couple weeks ago. Does this fact make me a bad person!?

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  8. Hmmm.. were you in the process of reading it to a small child? Then Maybe. But probably not, if said small child has a good sense of humour.

    ReplyDelete

Engaging in discussion and/or general sucking up.. that's where it's at!

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