think for yourself

Sometimes it's hard to read to Cassidy without editorializing. Holly makes fun of me when we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and I point out that, in fact, butterflies hatch from chrysalises and moths hatch from cocoons, and in Bicycle For Sale Oswald the Octopus repairs his bike tires by painting them and puts olive oil on the chain, which always leads into a digression about proper bike maintenance.

The Cat in the Hat has been hard to read since DD pointed out that the message is basically "let strangers in when you're home alone, and never tell your parents if they do anything."

Lately, we've been reading Where The Wild Things Are quite a bit, but the message here seems to be that if you're mean to people who are nice to you, you'll get rewarded.

Maybe I'm making too much of all this, and those courses in literary criticism are getting in the way. Dinosaur ABC's has been fine, and I haven't had to point out any glaring inaccuracies, like the fact that Dimetrodon is not actually a dinosaur. (this has been known to derail How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?) I also haven't had any problem with Richard Scarry, except for the fact that half the objects in the pictures are completely archaic (old telephones, radios and record players, for example) and I approve of Punk Farm's message that it's OK to stay up late playing rock music.