Jason M. Jones

There’s a line in one of my daughter’s Disney 5-minute Snuggle Stories that I have to edit each time I read it to her: “Boo was happy to see the one-eyed monster, but she didn’t laugh as much as usual.” Of course a one-eyed monster is a cyclops. Everybody knows that. But one-eyed monster is also slang for…well, my mind is always reading the double entendres in things like this. Let’s just say, if you don’t know what it’s slang for, it’s not appropriate for children’s literature, and honestly, I can’t keep a straight face when I try reading it properly. So the line simply becomes, “Boo was happy to see her friend…” Because of who I am I imagine the writer chuckling to himself as he wrote it (if it’s intentional I have to assume a juvenile male). I also imagine a failure on the part of any editorial figure above the writer who was more interested in dashing off this book for profits rather than doing any kind of proper content edit. After all, the book is poorly written all around. But my daughter loves it. It has short continuations of Toy Story, Tangled, and Dumbo. A Winnie the Pooh tale (which I’ll admit I’m partial to) and a Minnie Mouse/Daisy Duck saga, which seems to be my daughter’s favorite. The story I mention here is a continuation of Monsters, Inc. if you didn’t catch that already. I’m a fan of some of these movies (Toy Story, Pooh). A few I haven’t seen (Tangled, and the story really doesn’t make me want to rush out to view it, filled as it is with that overwrought sarcastic brand of kids humor designed specifically to make adults roll their eyes). But I endure this book because I like reading to her, regardless of how inane the children’s book she brings to me is.

I’ve been reading to my daughter since she came out of the womb. Maybe I wasn’t there holding a book in the delivery room. But soon after we came home, whenever I was sitting with her, I was reading. Early on it was Jane Eyre. I had the impulse to start reading aloud to her in cases where I came across a passage I liked, and this continued with Dickens, Faulkner, whatever else I found in hand. Obviously, she didn’t understand, but I liked to do it. Once she reached a point where she could understand, I had to change the choice of reading matter to something easily comprehensible. This meant starting off with Eric Carle’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I’m a fan of Carle’s work. The books are simple and well-drawn. But for some reason, I don’t like Walter the Baker which details the arbitrary nature of the ruling class. Perhaps it hits a little too closely to how the adult world works for someone as young as my daughter. Maybe I just don’t like the reminder when I read that those in power, whether the leaders of my company or the folks down in Washington, can behave just as arbitrarily and without apparent reason as the duke and duchess in the book (even though, you know, class doesn’t exist in America). Of course, to a child, I imagine this arbitrary power extends to parental power as well.

In any case, I enjoy reading to my daughter. It’s part of her bedtime ritual. It’s the only time I can get her to sit still and pay attention; though children’s books, like books for adults, are hit or miss. We own a few of those misses, books I abhor. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day is one of them. Unlike Walter the Baker, which I avoid because it hits too close to the bone, I dislike Alexander on a fundamental level. He’s a whiner. It’s the same reason I don’t let my daughter watch Caillou anymore. “Suck it up, kid!” I feel like yelling. “You’re getting a little too Eeyore on me here.” And I love Eeyore in the context of Pooh. But if he was the central character I doubt the series would be as popular or as fondly remembered by adults as it is. Fortunately, with Alexander, it’s out of sight out of mind. I can put it up on a higher shelf and she forgets about it. For some reason, this doesn’t seem to be the case with library books. My wife is better at vetting the books we check out for our daughter than I am. I figure if I bring home a dud, I can always return it whenever I go back. I stop there all the time. But then I return it and our daughter asks for it a week later, which means I have to pull the old bait and switch and get her interested in something else, or return to the library and search out something I really don’t want to read in the first place.

She’ll develop her own tastes someday. For the time being, I hope the influence I have in guiding her toward quality reading material will carry over into when she selects books for herself. Dr. Seuss, naturally, stands the test of time. Oddly enough, however, two of his best-known tales—The Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas—hinge on home invasion. I love anything Maurice Sendak was involved in. Where the Wild Things Are is the cooler one to cite, but I really like The Adventures of Little Bear. It took me a few reads to warm up to it, but my initial reservations are exactly what I now like about it. The prose is incredibly clean and direct. There’s something I admire in that as an adult writer (and I know, of course that Sendak only illustrated it, he didn’t write the book). Then, there’s the Olivia series and Madeline. Both with strong-minded female protagonists at the heart of the story. When my youngest sister was a preteen I introduced her to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files, both of which had such female protagonists at their cores, and while it will be a few years before I let my daughter watch these shows, Olivia and Madeline serve as a good introduction for her to understand that girls can be the savvy centers of stories as well as boys.

I’m going to miss it when we stop. I know that’ll happen some day. Before that, we’ve got Harry Potter to look forward to, the Little House books maybe. And I remember liking Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume books. So I’ve got plans for us. There’s a lot of fun ahead I suppose. And who says we have to stop when she grows up? Here’s to hoping that maybe, even as a teen, she’ll ask for recommendations, and we’ll continue to share this as our bond.