In this post I will be sharing a few short reviews on children's books (board or picture books) that I've read with my kids lately. Both kids are under 4, so we're talking about books for the preschool, toddler, and infant audience specifically. My thoughts are specific to my own political values; you might not have the same concerns as me when looking for books. And some of the books are highly enjoyable with mediocre politics, or kinda boring and uninteresting with great politics.

I suspect that some of my thoughts I'd like to share would make a great hit segment on a far-right outrage channel about those crazy libs/the radical left. We're gonna nitpick here, pals! It's my blog and that's what I feel like doing. I am not asking for these books to be banned, and most of these books I've enjoyed reading with my kids and will continue to do so even if there's pages I roll my eyes at each time.

This is hopefully the first entry in a series I'd like to continue, but I have learned from my attempt at writing a mega-post giving a short blurb about every Adeem the Artist song, that is still not complete (or published) approximately a year or more after starting it that it is perhaps best to write the couple thoughts you have right now, and maybe you can put more up later, but don't try to do everything all at once or you'll never be able to share any of it.

Good Night, Good Night Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker: Let's start with an easy one. This book is great, 10/10 no notes. The rhythm and rhymes are great. It's a good length for bedtime.

Construction Site, Taking Flight by Sherri Duskey Rinker: From the same author as the above, this one has the same trucks as the original plus some airplanes and airport-related trucks. The rhythm patterns of the original are present and still great. My main beef with this book though is that the first few pages, when it's talking about the need to expand the airport and the roads leading to it, totally ignores the very real phenomenon of induced demand - adding lanes to a road will never help traffic!

We still read this book all the time and are getting our kid the Construction Site farm themed book, and the airplane one but in French, for our kids as a Christmas gift.

Sharky McShark by Alison Murray: Okay, I get that this is a shark-based retelling of a classic fable, where the big strong animal who bullies the small ones realizes he needs a small one's help and decides to be a better animal-person from then on... but that story's message sucks! Sharky is a mean bully, and proud of it. He doesn't have any friends. Then he gets in a dangerous scary situation (honestly almost too-scary side for our nearly 4-year-old), and a little shrimpy fish he was mean to just a page before helps him out and then they become friends, somewhat inexplicably? And Sharky decides to stop being a bully because he realizes he does actually need friends, and was just scared of being rejected. Maybe let's not with the "bullies are just sad and misunderstood" narrative, and also, even if we help out our bullies when they are in a tough spot, we don't actually have to be friends with them immediately after that? Where's the accountability, where's the apology and repair and efforts to do better, not necessarily mediated by the bully's most recent victim driving the redemption arc?

Interdit aux éléphants by Lisa Mantchev (appears to be called Strictly No Elephants in English, but we got the French from the library). This is a cute concept that I think could have used a few more rounds of revisions. On the day of the Club des Animaux, the kid who has a pet mini-elephant finds an "elephants not allowed" sign on the door of the club location. There is no explanation given for why elephants are not allowed and the book does not even reall question this. Every time my kid asks "why were the elephants not allowed" and I have to say "I don't really know; the book doesn't really say." And then the kid with the elephant meets someone who wanted to bring her skunk to the club, and says the other kids didn't want them to hang out either even though skunks weren't mentioned on the sign. "He doesn't smell, you know", the girl says (in French). "They don't know anything." Okay, sure, maybe the other kids are mislead on the merits of pet skunks (are they?), but there was no reasoning even offered about why elephants weren't allowed so how do we know it's based on a factual misunderstanding? (Remember when I said we were gonna nitpick?) Then the two kids decide to make their own club where everyone is welcome. They pick a treehouse in a park where there is inexplicably (are you noticing a theme here) a sign already on the door that says certain types of people aren't allowed, which they are crossing off to put "everyone is welcome" on instead. The treehouse isn't the same place the previous exclusive club was held; why is there already some other kids' exclusionary sign on it, too? My kid always ask abou that too - what are they writing on the sign, what's that part that's crossed out say? Why does it say that? And, it's a treehouse, and a giraffe is standing on the ground looking in. "Everyone's allowed" I say, and my kid says, every time "but not the giraffe". In the spirit of the book the giraffe is supposed to be being included, but it's equality but not equity I guess - the giraffe can not actually get inside the tree house even if it's allowed to be there.

Go Bikes, Go! by Addie Boswell. We all love this one. 10/10 for giving us a reason to yell "go bikes, go!" when we're biking somewhere together as a family each time we take off from a stop.

If I Were a Llama by JellyCat. This book has nice tactile things on each page babies might want to touch. If I were a llama I'd have a fluffy tail, wow so fluffy. I might have soft ears, wow so soft. All nice attributes of a possible llama, and then bam, last page, "If I were a llama I would live with my friends guarding the magic mountain." Excuse me, what! We have not previously explored at all in this book the possibility this is a magical mountain guard type llama; there is no lead-up here. There's also nothing else really; that's the end of the book. I can't stand this book. I've read it to my kid so many times. :D

Anything ever written about Petit Ours Brun (Little brown bear). We've got some little booklets in French I picked up while we were still in the US about a bear called Petit Ours Brun. A beloved classic character of French children's media, for sure, but I kinda hate all the books. Petit Ours Brun is kinda whiny, or seems to at least not model very good behavior - the booklet that narrates his bedtime routine is the worst but not the only offender. Petit Ours Brun is complaining about not being able to find his teddy. Now he's asking for a drink after he's already in bed. Now he's asking for another hug after his parent already left the room, and the parents keep coming back. Set some boundaries, Papa Ours and Mama Ours!

Board books in cursive. I've only seen French language board books do this; American publishers would never, apparently. But we have some board books where the font for the text is entirely in cursive. I'd rather they weren't!

I'm out of time for now, so that's my list for today! Press publish and next time I have time I can post again - that's the joy of blogging after all.



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