I Was Going To Try To Be Nice But...I Just Ended Up Being Humiliated

Okay, so now we've established that I am a humorless, irate feminist and extremely long-winded, too. It's time to move on.

I wanted to do something positive today. I wanted to do something nice for somebody. I thought I might try to do something nice for those parents who worry about their children being fed a steady diet of depressing literature at school. I'd been thinking about that recently because there's just been a new essay on the subject. Whenever a parent speaks up on this issue, the kidlit world tends to see it as a red flag. The troops seem to rally, and it seems to me that it becomes a them against us issue.

I've known parents who have voiced such concerns. They were educated, intelligent people who had their children's best interests at heart. They were speaking from their own personal experience. I don't feel that I have any right to tell them that their life's experience is wrong and mine is right, that the literary world is a great free forall and their kids should just get in there and start swinging, trying to hit as many books as they can before they pass from this vale of tears. Let the battle shape them as it will.

I don't know what can be done to address these parents' issues, but I think their points should be taken seriously. We shouldn't react to them in a kneejerk fashion. We should show them the same sort of respect we'd expect to receive ourselves.

So I was thinking about saying something like that, and then I read this article and the wind went right out of my sails. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. The serious people who want to raise this issue as a legitimate topic for discussion cannot be happy about this.

Thanks to Kelly at Big A little a for the link.

Update: Damn! There was a part of me that thought that The Happy Ending Foundation story might be a joke, but I didn't listen because we've all heard weirder stuff, right? Right? And now look what leila at bookshelves of doom reports. The whole thing appears to be a marketing ploy for the Lemony Snicket books. As if they need to sell any more of those.

Thank God it's the weekend because between my self-righteous indignation yesterday and my humiliation over falling for this thing today, I am exhausted.

This blog needs an editor.