I doubt the artist and author really intended for you to think the kid is smirking at the end, but it does sound like the book is aiming a noseful of judgement at you, the parent who is presumably reading this book aloud without goddamn vetting it.
I've read and heard about a lot of picture books like this, with the high-handed and the moralizing. Does it taper off once you get to the early reader level, where the books are expected to have plots? (Yunno, Mouse and the Motorcycle, Charlotte's Web, etc. - I think that's the right term.) If not, or if you don't know, what do you think you'll do when your kids start reading denser books?
(My parents didn't vet ANY of my reading, but AFAICT this kind of crap wasn't so common when we were kids. Or perhaps it's just so generic that few such books stay in print.)
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I've read and heard about a lot of picture books like this, with the high-handed and the moralizing. Does it taper off once you get to the early reader level, where the books are expected to have plots? (Yunno, Mouse and the Motorcycle, Charlotte's Web, etc. - I think that's the right term.) If not, or if you don't know, what do you think you'll do when your kids start reading denser books?
(My parents didn't vet ANY of my reading, but AFAICT this kind of crap wasn't so common when we were kids. Or perhaps it's just so generic that few such books stay in print.)
Also, nuts.
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