“Oh, I love the Arthur books,” the new check-out girl at the library raved. “They’re such fun!”
I smiled politely and remained silent as she checked out my monthly half-dozen children’s picture books.
I am at that point in my read-every-book challenge where I’m yet again reading a massive children’s picture book series that I don’t particularly like.
This time, it’s Marc Brown’s Arthur.
Apart from the fact that it’s a massive series and that it’s repetitive and that the stories aren’t particularly interesting, what bugs me about Marc Brown’s Arthur series is how many meanies there are.
Almost every book includes some form of sibling rivalry, classroom taunting, or other mild bullying (although I fear to use that word, given the current anti-bullying craze.)
I understand the point. Teasing happens. Bullying happens. Brown wants to portray child life as it is, give children something to identify with. Furthermore, he probably wants kids to develop empathy with Arthur (frequently the recipient of the teasing) and hopefully to learn that it isn’t nice to bully and taunt. All understandable and noble goals.
But, while I can’t remember exactly where I read it (maybe Nurture Shock?), I remember reading that such attempts generally backfire. Rather than producing empathy and encouraging children to avoid taunting, hearing stories about children being teased only adds to a child’s arsenal of ways to pick on other children. Children don’t come up with “four-eyes” on their own – they hear it on a television show or read about it in Arthur’s Eyes. And when they hear about it, they don’t file it away as “something I wouldn’t like to be called” – they file it away as “something to throw at my glasses-wearing-classmate next time I feel like being superior.”
So what kind of stories would I prefer?
I’d prefer stories that focus on kids banding together to overcome obstacles and fight real bad guys – bad guys so scary they’d never want to be them. I prefer the fairy tale version of life, where children must be smart and slay dragons instead of each other.
What do you think of Arthur? Do you have any favorite children’s picture book series?
I’m not familiar with Arthur, and I think I’m glad of that.
Favorite picture book series, hm.
I like Pete the Cat (haven’t read all of them), and the original Winnie the Pooh and Herriott (although both of those are longer than most picture books). Maybe Madeleine? Mo Willems’ books are fun; he has a couple different series. Most of the picture books I like aren’t part of a series, it would seem.
I don’t think we read any of the books but we did watch the TV show fairly often. I don’t remember catching that aspect, but it’s true that kids are more likely to pick up that kind of thing as future ammunition rather than an example of what not to do, even if they did empathize with the character in the story.
We read a lot of the Little Bear series by Else Holmelund Minarik, the Jesse Bear books by Nancy White Carlstrom, a lot of Robert McCloskey books. One favorite was The Puppy Who Wanted a Boy by Jane Thayer. Another favorite of mine but for kids a little older was Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie by Peter Roop, about a girl who has to keep the lighthouse lamps burning when her father is delayed from getting back home due to a storm. I like that aspect in books where a person has to stretch themselves beyond what they think they can do.
We read a lot of Curious George even though I didn’t like the pattern of doing something wrong and then making up for it by doing something good. It seemed to me to be a part of the “making sure your good deeds outweigh your bad ones” philosophy, which is, of course, from a Christian viewpoint totally the wrong approach to life. But I watched some of the newer cartoons with Timothy recently, and the storyline was totally different in them than the ones we used to watch.
I’ve never much cared for Arthur for the same reasons you mention. It’s just sort of ….depressing.
As far as “old school” series we read, I go with Curious George (even though I can’t stand his disobedience sometimes and how everything works out in the end even if he has done terrible wrong) and ANYTHING Arnold Lobel or Bill Peet. Those two are total winners.