Trashing Elmo

hen our son Drake was on the way, certain policies and principles regarding his childhood scarcely needed to be spoken — indeed, to mention them aloud would have seemed coarse, even insulting. For example:

WE WILL NOT CENSOR BOOKS AND TOYS.

But because Bruce has been through this business twice before (with Alex, now 24, and Spencer, 15), he might have winced a bit at such a declaration. He is aware of something he calls the “Berenstain Loophole,” first invoked shortly after Alex’s second birthday. On that occasion, one of Alex’s pals (with witless parents, obviously) slipped a wrapped package of two Berenstain Bears books in amongst the other guests’ gifts of Hot Wheels racers and Playmobil emergency vehicles. Alas, Bruce — naif that he was — had no idea such . . . printed matter existed, so he failed to pounce and destroy until it was too late: Alex got his mom to read him the books several times in the next couple of days.

A disaster unfolded. One of the books related that Sister Bear was afraid of the dark. Her drippy terror played out in lurid imagery, to be solved on the last page by the purchase (suggested, of course, by that nonpareil of homespun wisdom, Mama Bear) of a night-light.

Until this point in his life, Alex was indifferent to the fact that something called The Dark even existed. It had never crossed his mind that the relative luminescence of his room was attached to a value system. Sometimes you could see everything, sometimes you couldn’t — you went with what you got. Ah, but chez Berenstain, things were differently ordered, so for two weeks Alex decided that there was a Dark and maybe he ought to be afraid of it. Bruce was finally subjected to the infamy of following the lead of Mama B.: he bought Alex a night-light.

So, functionally, Ginee-and-Bruce’s new rule might read:

WE WILL NOT CENSOR BOOKS OR TOYS
UNLESS THEY ARE TOTAL CRAP.

Alas, this rule does not take into account adoring relatives, babysitters, friends of babysitters, pediatricians, and the nice man at the Rite Aid on Seventh Avenue. Even one’s otherwise faultless friends can fall prey to a Thomas the Tank Engine beginner set — and après that, the deluge: the book-with-wheels cannot be far behind. So you do the inevitable (especially when the gift-giver is present). You gamely read the thing in question, which may or may not have appendages and emit funny noises. You hope that will do it. But your child appears enchanted. “More?” he inquires, and then you are for it, doomed to read the thing through at least three more times before suggesting an alternative (“Let’s read Freight Train!”) or a distraction (“Let’s have a sugary snack!”). Later, at your leisure, you wrestle: should I put this back in his book pile or do the unimaginable and throw it away? A book. In the trash. Like the Nazis and the Branch Davidians.

Here’s the thing that every newish parent quickly understands: very young children have inclinations that defy categorization or comprehension. It takes talent to recognize this and speak to it; when those forces are brilliant or at least benign, you end up with books like Goodnight Moon, Goodnight, Gorilla, and Sandra Boynton (Ginee happens to think a few of those Boynton books, like Blue Hat, Green Hat, are works of genius). When those forces are greedy and malevolent, you end up with Tinkle Tubsies or non-Henson Elmo or Lord-knows-what beaming character concocted by market research and focus groups, an incubus guaranteed to make serial killers of your kids. This realization, of course, then wreaks havoc on the rash corollary to the second rule, which is:

WE WILL PERSONALLY PURCHASE ONLY
THAT WHICH WE COULD IMAGINE MAKING OURSELVES
(I.E., WRITING OR EDITING) AT OUR VERY BEST
(WE ALL HAVE AN INNER CRAP ARTIST.)

But here is the humbling thing: children, especially young children, have strong irrational likes and dislikes, and some of the books they love best are, frankly, a mystery. For example, Spring Is Here by Taro Gomi. This was a gift from friends who have a daughter two years older than our son, and it baffled us at first. Don’t get us wrong, it’s a lovely book, just . . . weird. It’s a celebration of the seasons in which a calf metamorphoses into fresh earth, growing grass, and the changing seasonal landscape, only to change back into an older calf at the end of the story. You would not be amiss in thinking it sounds a bit like a short Japanese animated film in board-book form. You would therefore think that it wouldn’t be appealing to a developing human unable to say spring, let alone anime or Miyazaki. Yet this quickly became one of Drake’s favorite books (and other children’s as well; we noticed the book was in its seventh printing).

There is something liberating in all this. It confirms something we all know, which is that “taste” at this — or any — age is an elusive, reaching thing. And that for every Elmo book out there (yes, we have one, and yes, he loves it, and Bruce put in the trash on Tuesday without a moment’s pause), there is a Denise Fleming (Barnyard Banter — more genius!) and a Richard Scarry (Cars and Trucks and Things That Go — best boy-book ever) and, most wonderful of all, some bizarre yet irresistible new kooky book yet to be discovered to make things right in the universe. And who knows? We, the snarky all-knowing parents, may even learn a thing or two.

So: channel your inner authoritarian and bin everything cutesy and stupid. Trust your ineluctable sense of “taste.” But be prepared for some surprises. And for God’s sake stay away from Chuck E. Cheese. That way lies madness.

Bruce Brooks is an acclaimed author of young adult books. Ginee Seo is vice president and editorial director of Ginee Seo Books at Atheneum.

From the May/June 2008 issue of The Horn Book Magazine