MSN Mondays: 9 most subversive kid's books

But first, I believe the majority of world news was trumped by the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Ten years ago I remember rolling out of bed late, we were given the option of skipping as many chapels as we wanted during the second semester of our senior year, a policy which lead to me attending roughly one chapel, and the conclusion that I'm not so good at showing up for the parts of life that aren't mandatory, and my roommate asked if I wanted to know what was going in the world. Honestly, I didn't really know what the WTC towers were at that point in time, but I, like the rest of the nation, was horrified at the images that were being played time and again.

And we connected the attacks, eventually, to Osama Bin Laden, a man who became our generations version of Hitler or Stalin. A world super villain. And when he was killed people celebrated, and, particularly as a person of faith I was confused about how exactly I should feel about a person dying. Was it okay to feel jubilation? I certainly felt no regret and was okay with that, but was it a day of national celebration? Perhaps. I don't know. It seems to me that he got what he deserved; only he probably deserved far worse. However, I agree with a friend's post that said, "I pray for the soul of Osama Bin Laden." Even though if there's any sort of hell, fire, absence, loneliness, a person that comes by and eats one of your fingers or toes on a daily basis, he's probably got a nice seat there.

Within a few days of the attack a few of us left for a four day weekend. It was a standard type of big weekend event for the people at my school, and in fact it was the weekend that I first started to fall for the woman who was to become my wife a couple of years later. But what really struck me, was that on our trip, it was three guys, the girls all drove down separately, and we were having the greatest time. Which, you know, is the sort of thing that you almost feel guilty about in retrospect. How sad should I be? But the living just go on living and laughing and that's the way of things. It's really neither here nor there, but as we drove down the freeway a Ford F-150 pulled up on our right with a message painted on the back window of the cab that said, "Nuke the Dune Coons," and I remember the three of growing somber, and noting the wispy mustache on the driver and old trucker's hat. At that point we then had a good conversation about reprisal that I don't remember any of the details of.

Ten years later as I was sitting in bed feeling euphoric or just a small sense of closure. (We're still dealing with the fallout from that day ten years later. The death of Bin Laden is a small step in the direction of healing. Al-Queda is still a functioning organization and American troops are still slogging around in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is why I couldn't quite join in on the unalloyed joy; it seemed oddly misplaced or short sighted. And the argument that I'm just being a kill joy gets a little more complicated when we learn that a woman was killed who was being used as a body shield, and you start to think about the overwhelming number of casualties of this war on terror, these wars that have been inflicted on innocent people. I don't know. I can't say I'm happy. I can say that after I stopped wondering how I felt that I crept into my very small daughter's room and kissed her on the forehead, and I went back to bed happy that the world was, perhaps, a safer place for that little one.

MSN Mondays:

1) The Bible-The Bible is definitely one of the most subversive kid's books ever. It has all sorts of rack and ruin and mayhem and adultery and people being slaughtered because they set up shop on the Promised Land. A father sacrificing, almost, his son. Lots and lots of people drowned so that we can tell a nice story about an Ark. From the great book of Kings. Instilling a healthy fear of bears.

23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!” 24 When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number.

Elisha getting back at the kids for calling him bald.

2) The Harry Potter Books-I think we can all agree, without having read them, that these books are probably the instrument of Satan and his minions. People doing magic has been a sign of the devil since time in memoriam. It doesn't matter if the kids a nerd. He's a witch.



3)The little Engine that Could-Why? Because sometimes it's okay to not be able to do something. My good friend Flannery O'connor once said that the one thing she regretted not doing more as a teacher was discouraging. The Little Engine teaches kids that it's not okay to fail, when in fact that's what most of life is about. Well, that, and for a time in college writing one page of a paper and then bitching to your friends for an hour or so about how you have this long paper that you should be writing until they ask you to leave and work on the damn thing.

That's right Lil engine, just grab a smoke break.

4) The Very Hungry Caterpillar-Why can't he just have been the reasonably hungry caterpillar? Did he really need that cupcake? This is the reason we're dealing with a massive diabetes epidemic in this country. Because kids have been raised to think that it'a all right to just stuff yourself to the gills because you'll come out a beautiful butterfly. False. Now where can I get my hands on some mauling bears?

Maybe just some light jump roping after your fifth course okay buddy?

5) Twitter-WTF? Why the face? I don't even know what the Twitter verse is but you can bet your ass it's subverting our kids by teaching them to express themselves in all sorts of monosyllabic ways that they'll later employ during their teenage years to punish us. This book should be banned.

It doesn't look so far away now does it?

6) Little House on the Prairie and Ann of Green Gables- I haven't read anything of either of these series, but it's safe to say that these families probably hated American Indians or they wouldn't have stolen their land, but there we go just teaching kids that it's all right to take something that's not yours if you're an American. That's why we have medicaid now. Am I right comrades? Comrades? Oh...awkward.

What? Oh, no this house has been here forever. Who are you anyway sir with your fancy hairdo?

7) Where the Wild Things Are-Everyone has read this book and no one really knows what the hell is going on. This book teaches our kids that taking drugs is okay because you'll just get to go to a giant island where all your friends look like giant cats and play with them. No LSD 1960's, stop pushing!

Just have another puff Max. You druggie!

8) Ping the duck-This book is racist. I can't come up with specific proof, but I always had the vague sense, even as a toddler, that the book was racist. I also read it every time we went to the public library, which just shows you how really subversive the damn thin is/was.

Racist.

9) Atlas Shrugged-Ayn Rand doesn't give a shi- about you. I mean, as a child, I had a really difficult time not sympathizing with John Gault, and I don't understand why droves and droves of three year olds are picking this up. Capitalism is not your friend kid's. It will mash you under the heel of its shoe in some thankless and boring job that you have to work because you have loans and needs and wants thrust upon you. Also, communists are great, that whole Russia and Cuba thing turned out well. Don't listen to Ayn; it's okay to share. But the next time your toddler bashes some other kid over the head with a truck and starts declaring that he farmed out the foreign labor that built this truck you can thank Ayn Rand for turning them into a jerk.

Okay, Atlas, you carry it for the first few hundred years but then I'm ready to help