A Not So Good Book Review

I don't read every book my children bring home from school or the library. Although I am pretty aware of what they are reading, I haven't felt the need to read every Magic Tree House and Redwall book that marches through the door. However, now that Joseph is starting to read books with more substance, I am finding that I need to read the books so I can address many of the questions the books bring up (a huge lesson learned from a simple report on Rosa Parks- try explaining the Scottsboro Boys trial to a 10 year old- not fun). For Christmas I usually buy each child a book. This Christmas I bought Joseph a series of books that I had not read. I just went off reader reviews (the first book has 5 stars on Amazon and people go on and on about how wonderful it is) and the fact that according to Joseph "everyone has read it." Obviously the "everyone" fact should have clued me in to the nature of this series. So for what it is worth, here is my first scathing book review.

When I finally picked up these books to read I was horrified. It actually made me sick to my stomach that Joseph had read them (and that I had bought them!). This is a pretty extreme reaction for me, so let me explain. The books are funny. The books capture the mentality of a teenager. The books are original- part journal, part comic strip. However, the books have something majorly objectionable in every single chapter. Objectionable, you wonder?! Do they have drugs, alcohol, or promiscuity? No, nothing that major, these books just present meanness, disrespect, selfishness, and laziness as funny and even worse, as completely normal and acceptable.

Here is one example from the book taken from a review on Amazon: "For instance, on Halloween, Greg and his best friend, Rowley, take refuge from some high school boys at Greg's grandmother's house; they taunt the bullies, who then T.P. her house. Greg's journal entry reads, "I do feel a little bad, because it looked like it was gonna take a long time to clean up. But on the bright side, Gramma is retired, so she probably didn't have anything planned for today anyway." " Ummm yeah. I don't quite know what to say to this except expecting your Grandmother to clean up a yard full of TP and being disrespectful are not high up on my list of funny.

I may not object to these books quite so much if the main character had a moment of insight or learned from his mistakes. Unfortunately the author never felt the need for the character to learn or grow- he thought it was sufficient to just entertain.

I realize that I sound extreme. Many people obviously find these books to be a good read. However, when I feel like I fight the battle against disrespect and meanness everyday, I can't accept when it is presented as humor.

So, I did damage control. Joseph and I sat down and went through the books chapter by chapter and talked about all the things in them that although may have seemed funny on the surface, were not acceptable forms of behavior. In case you are wondering, Joseph did not find anything wrong with the books until we started to talk about them. He just thought they were funny. Which verifies why I think they are such dangerous books.