Recent (picture book) reading
Dec. 27th, 2005 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomikritzerOn our most recent trip to the library, Kiera picked out a book called How Smudge Came, because it had a dog on the cover. Molly chose Corduroy's Christmas Surprise.
How Smudge Came tells the story of Cindy, who finds a puppy and secretly takes him home. It's not until the story is underway that the adults reading the story realize that Cindy is a mentally handicapped adult who lives in a group home. Cindy works during the day cleaning a hospice; she brings her puppy with her, and it's named Smudge by a young man who's a patient there.
There are other books about mentally handicapped characters, but most are told from the viewpoint of a friend or a sibling. This story is from Cindy's viewpoint. The puppy, of course, is discovered, and taken away from her; she enlists help from the patients at the hospice to figure out how to get to the animal shelter to get him back. It's a really nice story. And I am a sucker, so I got completely choked up by the not-really-a-surprise ending (the puppy is adopted by the hospice). I highly recommend seeking it out.
Corduroy's Christmas Surprise, on the other hand...
I had fond memories of Corduroy and A Pocket For Corduroy from my own childhood. I sought them out when Molly started enjoying books and was pleasantly surprised to find them even better than I remembered. Unlike most children's books, which are set in a sort of Suburban Generica with white picket fences and mostly white people, Corduroy's friend Lisa clearly lives in New York City. Lisa's mother is black; based on the drawings, it is possible that Lisa has a Hispanic father. They wash their laundry at a laundromat owned by a Hispanic man, and as they go into the laundromat you see a lady in a sari sweep by. Corduroy gets lost at the laundromat and is found by an artist; he's a wonderfully hippy-ish bohemian guy with a beret. Lisa lives in an apartment, not a house. It's a really distinct, diverse environment.
Unfortunately, Don's heirs sold out. (Or maybe he signed a bad contract. I have no idea, but either way, I think Don is probably rolling over in his grave.)
We own a spin-off 'based on the character created by Don Freeman" book about Corduroy getting a garden. Lisa at least appears in that book, and although she lives in a house now, it's a row house; you can believe that the book is still set in New York. But Corduroy's Christmas Surprise is hideous. It's set in a world of white picket fences and big suburban yards; worse, it's populated entirely by toys. Christmas is all about presents; in the requisite heartwarming element, Corduroy leaves a note for Santa asking for gifts for his friends and nothing for himself, and naturally enough, gets both.
I was appalled; Corduroy's Garden was at least roughly in the spirit of the original Corduroy. It focused on the relationship between Corduroy and Lisa, first of all, and made an attempt to copy Corduroy's speaking style from the original books. Corduroy's Christmas didn't bother. It had nothing in common with the original but the name of the teddy bear, and was solely an attempt to cash in.
I'm not sure what galled me the most about Corduroy's Christmas, but it was probably the embrace of insipid dishonesty. Lisa lived in a world of scarcity -- not poverty, but not boundless stuff, either. In Lisa's world, if you leave a note for Santa saying that you need nothing, and Santa should give your gifts to your friends, that's probably what will happen, because that's probably all Santa brought. In Corduroy's Christmas, you get to share your cake, and eat it, too, and there's enough to go around because that's the magic of Santa's bottomless bag.
In my browsing through Amazon web pages, I discovered that Corduroy's Garden is actually much more recent than Corduroy's Christmas; hopefully the people with the rights to Corduroy realized that no one wants stories about Generic Bear, they want stories about the bear who lives with a little girl in New York.
How Smudge Came tells the story of Cindy, who finds a puppy and secretly takes him home. It's not until the story is underway that the adults reading the story realize that Cindy is a mentally handicapped adult who lives in a group home. Cindy works during the day cleaning a hospice; she brings her puppy with her, and it's named Smudge by a young man who's a patient there.
There are other books about mentally handicapped characters, but most are told from the viewpoint of a friend or a sibling. This story is from Cindy's viewpoint. The puppy, of course, is discovered, and taken away from her; she enlists help from the patients at the hospice to figure out how to get to the animal shelter to get him back. It's a really nice story. And I am a sucker, so I got completely choked up by the not-really-a-surprise ending (the puppy is adopted by the hospice). I highly recommend seeking it out.
Corduroy's Christmas Surprise, on the other hand...
I had fond memories of Corduroy and A Pocket For Corduroy from my own childhood. I sought them out when Molly started enjoying books and was pleasantly surprised to find them even better than I remembered. Unlike most children's books, which are set in a sort of Suburban Generica with white picket fences and mostly white people, Corduroy's friend Lisa clearly lives in New York City. Lisa's mother is black; based on the drawings, it is possible that Lisa has a Hispanic father. They wash their laundry at a laundromat owned by a Hispanic man, and as they go into the laundromat you see a lady in a sari sweep by. Corduroy gets lost at the laundromat and is found by an artist; he's a wonderfully hippy-ish bohemian guy with a beret. Lisa lives in an apartment, not a house. It's a really distinct, diverse environment.
Unfortunately, Don's heirs sold out. (Or maybe he signed a bad contract. I have no idea, but either way, I think Don is probably rolling over in his grave.)
We own a spin-off 'based on the character created by Don Freeman" book about Corduroy getting a garden. Lisa at least appears in that book, and although she lives in a house now, it's a row house; you can believe that the book is still set in New York. But Corduroy's Christmas Surprise is hideous. It's set in a world of white picket fences and big suburban yards; worse, it's populated entirely by toys. Christmas is all about presents; in the requisite heartwarming element, Corduroy leaves a note for Santa asking for gifts for his friends and nothing for himself, and naturally enough, gets both.
I was appalled; Corduroy's Garden was at least roughly in the spirit of the original Corduroy. It focused on the relationship between Corduroy and Lisa, first of all, and made an attempt to copy Corduroy's speaking style from the original books. Corduroy's Christmas didn't bother. It had nothing in common with the original but the name of the teddy bear, and was solely an attempt to cash in.
I'm not sure what galled me the most about Corduroy's Christmas, but it was probably the embrace of insipid dishonesty. Lisa lived in a world of scarcity -- not poverty, but not boundless stuff, either. In Lisa's world, if you leave a note for Santa saying that you need nothing, and Santa should give your gifts to your friends, that's probably what will happen, because that's probably all Santa brought. In Corduroy's Christmas, you get to share your cake, and eat it, too, and there's enough to go around because that's the magic of Santa's bottomless bag.
In my browsing through Amazon web pages, I discovered that Corduroy's Garden is actually much more recent than Corduroy's Christmas; hopefully the people with the rights to Corduroy realized that no one wants stories about Generic Bear, they want stories about the bear who lives with a little girl in New York.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-30 10:46 pm (UTC)Next thing you know, Paddington will be living in Denver, Colorado.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-01 05:56 am (UTC)Hahahahahahahaha.
No doubt.
And yes. I would loathe your lift-the-flap book. If I want Generic Reassuring Pablum, I'll go with Little Critter or Berenstein Bears, thankyouverymuch. (Little Critter manages occasional wittiness, plus it won my heart over with the fact that when Little Critter goes to the dentist, he actually has a cavity and has to get it drilled. Since I was reading dentist books to Molly because I already knew she had cavities, it was incredibly frustrating to find book after book where the lucky child has no cavities at all! (Worse yet were the ones where this was clear evidence of the child's virtue.)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-30 10:48 pm (UTC)There's the link. This is Pseudo btw.