Once upon a time, in what seems like another lifetime, my wife and I used to discuss current events, read actual books and see movies. We would debate the issues of the day and generally enjoy the type of discourse that over-educated people tend to engage in.
I recalled this recently and realized how much I miss such things, even if I don't always realize it, when I found myself analyzing and criticizing, in all seriousness, the story-line in "Noisy Friends". Noisy Friends is a piece of crap book put out by Fischer-Price that does not even bother to credit an author except in 10-point type on the back cover. It is a series of 5 illustrations, each of which features a different "noisy" friend; buzzing bees, a thumping rabbit, a croaking frog, tweeting birds and a chirping cricket. Indicative of the lack of effort someone put into the book is the fact that it is probably the first time that rabbits have ever been accused of being noisy. Anyway, what actually bothered me about the book was that in the third illustration, the croak of "Froggy" is telling everyone that "bedtime is near." This is further illustrated to the reader (or "looker" for the younger set) by the fact that it appears to be growing dark. The fifth illustration has a cricket making his nightime chirping through the night while the rest of his noisy friends sleep. The illustration in the middle of these two, however, is a mother bird bringing her babies their "favorite treat" (a strawberry of all things). Now that is all well and good but birds eating to me says mid-morning, not dusk. And the birds are bathed in bright yellow light - clearly mid-morning or afternoon. Although Owen helpfully suggested during my rant that the yellow might be bright moonlight, he is giving the "author" too much credit and, come to think of it, was probably just trying to shut me up so we could put the twins to bed and read a better book. At any rate, it is not a moonlight yellow but a glaring mid-day yellow. To me, the yellow of the illustration is a jarring interruption of the journey of our noisy friends towards their night of sleep (cricket excepted of course). Where were the editors on this one?? Its five pictures for God's sake. Couldn't they put them in some semblance of logical order. Even one year olds deserve to have their stories follow some arc and pacing.
I recalled this recently and realized how much I miss such things, even if I don't always realize it, when I found myself analyzing and criticizing, in all seriousness, the story-line in "Noisy Friends". Noisy Friends is a piece of crap book put out by Fischer-Price that does not even bother to credit an author except in 10-point type on the back cover. It is a series of 5 illustrations, each of which features a different "noisy" friend; buzzing bees, a thumping rabbit, a croaking frog, tweeting birds and a chirping cricket. Indicative of the lack of effort someone put into the book is the fact that it is probably the first time that rabbits have ever been accused of being noisy. Anyway, what actually bothered me about the book was that in the third illustration, the croak of "Froggy" is telling everyone that "bedtime is near." This is further illustrated to the reader (or "looker" for the younger set) by the fact that it appears to be growing dark. The fifth illustration has a cricket making his nightime chirping through the night while the rest of his noisy friends sleep. The illustration in the middle of these two, however, is a mother bird bringing her babies their "favorite treat" (a strawberry of all things). Now that is all well and good but birds eating to me says mid-morning, not dusk. And the birds are bathed in bright yellow light - clearly mid-morning or afternoon. Although Owen helpfully suggested during my rant that the yellow might be bright moonlight, he is giving the "author" too much credit and, come to think of it, was probably just trying to shut me up so we could put the twins to bed and read a better book. At any rate, it is not a moonlight yellow but a glaring mid-day yellow. To me, the yellow of the illustration is a jarring interruption of the journey of our noisy friends towards their night of sleep (cricket excepted of course). Where were the editors on this one?? Its five pictures for God's sake. Couldn't they put them in some semblance of logical order. Even one year olds deserve to have their stories follow some arc and pacing.
Now, do I really believe that the repeated readings of Noisy Friends demanded by my one-year old twins will have any lasting impact, dooming them to forever look expectantly to the sky as night falls, waiting in vain to see mother birds swooping towards their hungry chicks, their beaks straining under the weight of their cargo of fresh strawberries?? Nope. And if the entire book were random, I don't think I would have thought twice about it. It was the half-assed effort of introducing some time progression at all and then ignoring it that really bothered me, and the sense that if you are writing for one-year olds (although the book brashly recommends itself, again on the back cover, for all ages), you can just slop it together. Kids deserve better.
Anyway, I feel better having gotten that off my chest. Clearly I need an evening out sans children in the near future.
Anyway, I feel better having gotten that off my chest. Clearly I need an evening out sans children in the near future.
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