Kathryn's Inbox Exclusive: Politically Correct Book Club Disbanded After First Meeting

ADELAIDE AUSTRALIA--A book club for parents interested in sharing politically correct reading material with their children has disbanded after one meeting as the members could not agree on which children's books were politically correct. "Obviously it's disappointing," a spokesperson for the group, who wished only to be known as Willow, told one of our reporters. "I started this group with the best of intentions."

The group was formed after Willow developed concerns that the stories that were being read to her five-year-old son at child care were inappropriate. "I found the whole concept of this ... Green Eggs and Ham to be quite disturbing. I don't think it's appropriate that children should be reading books where the main character is being offered food by a complete stranger. That's sending a bad message to children if you ask me. Also, in our family, we eat a vegan diet."

Initially, Willow intended to have Green Eggs and Ham banned, but her calls fell on deaf ears. She was also unable to find any childhood education experts, child psychologists or children's librarians who would support her cause. Instead, one of the librarians Willow consulted suggested that she form a book club with likeminded parents, where they could all read and discuss what books they did consider to be suitable. "I thought that this was a great idea," Willow said. "And so, along with a number of parents from my sons child care centre, we formed the Politically Correct Book Club." While forming the book club was easy, Willow discovered, agreeing on books to read was not. "For every member who put forward a suggestion, we had another person who was quick to point out how the book may be unsuitable for children. For example, one parent suggested Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but another aired concerns that the story sent out a message that it was okay to break inside another persons house. Another parent was worried that children may be frightened by the ending, where the three bears confront Goldilocks ..."

The meeting soon dissolved in an all out-competition of which family was the most politically correct. One parent was quick to slam another who allowed their eight-year-old daughter to read Garfield comics, when the star of the comic was "Greedy and often mean to his sidekick Odie." The parent responded by branding Willow a hypocrite and then opening Willow's leather handbag to reveal that she had a ham and egg sandwich inside.

The children of the group, meanwhile, spent the morning playing peacefully outside, where they re-enacted scenes from Green Eggs and Ham ...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and the Football

Image
One of the longest, and arguably, most infuriating, running gags in Charles Schulz's otherwise brilliant Peanuts comic strip, is where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown and then pulls it away at the last minute, causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back. A typical strip looks like this: Source: Go Comics The gag is one of the darker themes in the strip. It works on the concept that every year, Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown. Every year, Charlie Brown is initially filled with doubt but is eventually pushed on by a kind of optimism that perhaps, this time, Lucy might just let him kick it after all. As a metaphor for life, it is pretty simple. It talks of the moments when we choose to put our trust in people who have let us down only to be taken by surprise when they let us down, again. Lucy is, arguably, one of the crueller characters in the comic. Described as crabby by the other characters, she is often selfish, takes delight in wilfully hu
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more