fine reads

We like to read, a lot, my kids and I. Visiting the library is a weekly (and sometimes bi-weekly) thing for us, and I can't skip over the book section of any thrift shop, which is another place we frequent. I try not to deny my kids any books, even though some of George's choices have led to improv work at storytime, to avoid... questionable text either I wasn't ready to tackle or he wasn't ready to hear. Picture books can be surprisingly dogmatic and violent! Despite my willingness to let them take home just about anything, however, there are some themes that I seek out, and qualities I look for in a picture book, to sort of level the field and normalize other realities for my white, (so far) cis-gendered kids who happen to have a "traditional" two-parent family. Unfortunately, these qualities in children's literature are also pretty hard to find, and difficult to search. Nobody's making Amazon lists called "non-heteronormative, multicultural books with ambiguous family situations your toddler will LOVE!" So goes the refrain of every over-achiever: I'll just do it myself. 

In a new series, Fine Reads, I'll be reviewing books we discover that are widely available online at Amazon or, preferably, Powell's, and rating them based on these criteria:

Kids' gender neutrality: I'll be noting whether or not there are gender pronouns used, if the children in the stories have gender-neutral names, or present in a typically-gendered way. 

Family situations: I'll be looking for books that include non-traditional families, including same sex parents, single parent families, children raised by non-biological parents (adoptive parents, grandparents, surrogate and foster families, etc.), or books that simply don't specify who the pictured adults are. 

Multiculturalism: This does not mean books about "the first Thanksgiving" and the like. I'm on the lookout for stories that feature regular ol' non-white or ethnically ambiguous families/children without tokenizing or fetishizing. 

Gentle parenting: Not looking for incidences of punishment or other bummers, though I'm not anti-parents just don't understand situations á la Maurice Sendak's entire oeuvre. 

Story and illustration quality: With obvious bias, but I'll comment on these, too. I'm often disappointed in children's books for their inattention to the story in favor of hip or pretty pictures. 

and, finally, Our family's overall rating: I'll be using a star system, with one being the lowest and five the highest. I'll link to where you can purchase the book for yourself, and no posts will be sponsored or otherwise subsidized unless information to the contrary is clearly stated. I'm not interested in shilling books for anyone, just in providing a resource for llikeminded parents and reading some good books with my kids. 

Are there any other criteria you'd like to see me cover? Leave a comment and I may add it to the list! Look for the first review coming in a few days; we checked out a very sweet title from our library last week! 

spoiler alert: i love suzanne collins

I just finished reading Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. It blew my mind. Totally and completely blew my mind. I'm a reader, and I'm skeptical of hugely popular young adult series for their manufactured mass appeal, the terrible norms they tend to perpetuate and the shoddy writing and editing that goes overlooked when time is money and the audience is waiting to find out which creepy, immortal jerk Bella will marry. Several friends had recommended The Hunger Games, but (alas) countless are the number of people I know who've loved Harry Potter, so it wasn't until I started seeing Suzanne Collins raved about on feminist blogs that I started to believe the series might be really good. 

Um. It is. Really, really good. It broke my heart. Broke it in two, then into thirds, and slowly, surely, into a million pieces and... left it there. Few storytellers have the nerve to do that: to offer little or no redemption for the characters with whom they know you've fallen in love. As the series progressed, I found it harder and harder to believe that a grown woman wrote these stories, as I couldn't imagine her allowing such terrible fates to befall children, fictional or otherwise. And that led me to consider the real children who make up Collins' intended audience. Of course, the actual readership is much larger, more varied than the suggested reading level suggests, as it should be. In reading, however, in suffering every gory loss, detailed and mourned by poor Katniss Everdeen and in experiencing, by proxy, the horrors of battle, I appreciated -- on one hand -- the indictment of war, but found myself aghast at times. Could kids really handle this? I looked periodically at my own, as he slept and I tried to angle my Kindle's light away from his face. Of course not! How could he process this at twelve, at fifteen, even at Katniss' stated age -- seventeen -- when I was having a hard time dealing? When is anyone prepared for such a vivid, largely unforgiving picture of death and violence and need and desperation?

But as I thought, I considered the books I read in adolescence, even shortly before. I tried to remember any that had scarred me -- none had, so far as I can tell. It struck me that it's possible that our teenage years are the perfect time for these gut-wrenching stories that are somehow nuanced while beating us over the head with message. In order to get invested without falling into a depression, I thought; In order to feel for these characters without being distracted by your want to save them, you have to feel invincible. You have to be a kid. 

I am always learning. Always surprised by the revelations I have now that I'm a parent, looking through the glass at the other side of childhood. I hope that when George is twelve, fifteen, seventeen, however old, I can trust his judgment. Give him the freedom to read, see, do what he can, because, as I'll tell him, if you wait until you're older -- until you have kids of your own -- your heart will be mush. You'll read books written for ninth graders while silently begging your snoring sixteen month old never to enlist in the military.