Above is a sample picture from my wife’s keepsake children’s book collection. They are from a series called “Alice in Bibleland” which aims to educate young children about God and good behavior. We’ll come back to them in a moment.
Some children’s books, The Berenstien Bears being the biggest culprit in my mind, aim to teach a moral or lesson through their stories. Little Timmy learns to tell the truth, Silly Sarah remembers to brush her teeth and so on.
Too often, these stories are corny or, worse yet, “preachy” and kids can see right through them. Given free choice, how many kids say, “Read me ‘Tommy Turtle Learns to Respect His Parents’!” Not many. What is it that so often makes these stories fall flat? I believe that it is because these stories are not “true”.
Even in fiction, we want our stories to have a ring of truth to them even as we acknowledge that they may have never happened at all. We want stories that we believe could happen, or, given a universe where bears and rabbits talk and play poker, would likely happen in a similar fashion.
This is called the suspension of disbelief, but it doesn’t mean believing anything and everything in a story. It means allowing for the possibility and “playing along”. Let’s pretend I’m reading a story (suspend your disbelief for a moment) whose setting is in a world exactly like ours except that bears and rabbits talk and play poker. Now let’s say that the bears discover that the rabbits have been cheating and say, “Gee Whiz, Rabbits. Your cheating has cost us our entire month’s salary of honey. We would kindly like it back.” “No way, Jose,” say the Rabbits, to which the Bears reply, “Oh well, forgive and forget. Another hand?”
This story is unbelievable. Not because the bears and rabbits are talking and wagering large sums of honey, but because we don’t believe that, GIVEN all those facts, the bears would react in that manner. The same goes with a lame story about Little Johnny stealing from the cookie jar. He does so because he wants a cookie, and feels good when he succeeds in getting it. But when his mother tells him, “You shouldn’t steal from the cookie jar, it will spoil your dinner,” he wouldn’t believable say, “You are right, Mother. What a naughty boy I’ve been. I will listen to you from now on.”
We might believe if, however, Little Johnny continues to eat all the cookies, gets an upset stomach and misses out on his favorite meal, Pizza Night! Nothing sets of alarm bells in our brains more than a character who is forced to act counter to her nature by an author with an agenda.
Now, back to Alice in Bibleland. The book that particularly appealed to me was called “Psalms and Proverbs”. As moral instructions, Proverbs are very good because they represent wisdom and truisms passed down for hundreds of generations. The same goes for Aesops Fables (a good site full of these fables can be found here). Everyone knows someone like the greedy fox, or the shortsighted grasshopper and the lessons they teach from their follies ring true because we’ve observed people or situations like them for ourselves.
Whether or not you are aiming to teach your child about God, the above pages are universal. “A soft answer turneth away wrath,” and “Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.” They are moralistic and illustrated in AGONIZING sweetness, but they don’t read as “false”, like some other books that strongarm their stories to fit the moral or lesson.
I hope I’ve helped you put your finger on why some of those books you’ve come across (you know the ones) are so dang CORNY.
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