Am I the only one who has this problem? Your child picks out a cute-looking book at the library, you bring it home and start reading it aloud....
Only to go "What the crap is this?!?!"
This is one of those books.
Larry and Roy are young polar bears asking about their father, only to be told that if they go near him he'll hit them at tell them to get lost.
When they protest to their mother that that doesn't seem very nice, she basically tells them to deal with it because that's how polar bears are and soon she's going to tell them to get lost too.
Okay, now I get that that's how nature really is. Let's not even talk about what wretched parents lions are. But really? For a child's picture book??
I started paraphrasing. Like... a lot. And if it had all been "true to nature" type storyline stuff, that would be one thing.
But it just got weirder from there. Larry and Roy go off on their own and find that they can take care of themselves. Good for them. Then Larry falls asleep on a piece of ice and ends up in New Jersey...
Where he has a banana muffin. Which wasn't blueberry, but hey, it was pretty good. (Passengers on a cruise ship throw blueberry muffins to Larry and Roy at the beginning of the book. Whatever.)
But you need money for muffins, so he becomes a lifeguard. Until they realize he's a polar bear. Which apparently took quite a while. (Insert New Jersey joke here, I suppose.) So he gets fired, but just then he saves a freakishly rich man who promises to build a hotel so that Larry can be the pool lifeguard to get money to buy muffins.
And they walk off together to buy muffins.
Seriously? What the heck?
I have GOT to start reading library books myself before reading them aloud. That one is sooooooo going back.
WOW, that is just ... weird.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's quite possibly the screwiest picture book I've ever read.
ReplyDeleteMy kids are always picking out books that I detest at the library. And they're right at the stage where they love to have the book read 14 million times in a row. Sometimes it really saps my will to live =o)
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad I'm not the only one!
ReplyDeleteI was just remembering a book I ordered from a Scholastic book fair once. I had no idea what it was about, but I liked the title. Bad decision. It was a really poorly written, dreadfully illustrated book that tried to teach kids not to fight. So heavy-handed I nearly gag every time I see it. My mom still has it. I'd like to steal it and throw it to the dogs.
ReplyDeleteAw, don't you hate that?
ReplyDeleteLOL on throwing it to the dogs...
Interesting - I'll make sure I avoid this title, but it's hard when they pick out a book like this. We've had a few like this, but this one sounds really strange.
ReplyDeleteI know, it's hard when they are picking their own books. This one went back REAL fast though.
ReplyDelete