Honey Bunny Funnybunny and Skippyjon Jones

It should be no surprise that there is just as much variety in quality in kids books and movies as adults. There are definitely books and movies that I find annoying or objectionable. Veggie Tales for instance...

This week, Meredith brought home one such book. It's one of those "I can read it all by myself" Beginner Books (with the Cat in the Hat picture in the corner). It's called Honey Bunny Funnybunny* and is written by Marilyn Sadler.

The book follows the familiar theme of sibling rivalry. Honey Bunny Funnybunny has a big brother, named P. J., who is always picking on her. The narrator catalogs the transgressions:*

Every morning,
P. J. pulled the covers
off Honey Bunny's bed.

Sometimes he poured orange juice
on her cornflakes.
He liked to tie knots
in the sleeves of her pretty dresses.
He poured blue paint
in her yellow paint jar.
And yellow paint
in her blue paint jar.

He even switched the heads
on her dolls.

And every night at the dinner table
P. J. smashed mashed carrots
on poor Honey Bunny's head!

After dinner, he put
her favorite fuzzy bunny blanket
in the freezer.
At bedtime, he hid under her bed
and yelled, "Boo!"

The only place she feels safe is her room, but then he sneaks in the middle of the night and paints her face bright green. She tells on him.

Mr. Funnybunny was very angry.
He sent P. J. to his room.
"You are a very bad bunny!"
Mrs. Funnybunny said.

After that, things were different
at the Funnybunny house.

She's now able to eat her cereal with milk, not orange juice and her dolls keep there own heads, etc. She's happy at first, but sad that she doesn't have her brother's attention. She waits for all the opportunties he has to play pranks on her, but he doesn't do anything to her and she is "as sad as sad can be."

The next morning she wakes up and tells her mom that "P.J. doesn't love me anymore." Her mom assures her that her brother does love her and proceeds to lift Honey Bunny in front of the mirror where she sees that "her face was painted blue with yellow polka dots!"

"P. J. loves me!" she cried"
Honey Bunny Funnybunny
was very happy.

She ends the book by hugging her brother.

I have a few responses to this book. First and foremost, is this modeling healthy relationships? Kids that are younger take things quite literally. The only kind of attention that is possible is negative attention. The idea of an alternative is ignored, having the effect of denying its very existence. Add the fact that the victim is a girl just makes the potential message to girls that much clearer.

Like lots of books written in the 60s and 70s, there are political/social/gender messages that aren't squarely where I'd like them. With the reference of dolls' heads being switched, I figured this was written in 1967 or something like that. I was surprised to discover the book was actually first published in 1997. So the author thinks today's dolls and stuffed animals have detachable heads. She thinks that beginning readers understand irony, or she has some pretty messed up notions of what an acceptable relationship is.

The way that P. J. is admonished is another surprise in a book written within the last 10 years. "You are a very bad bunny!" his mother tells him. Today's parents get to hear from source after source that the more effective and less abusive message is "what you did was bad" or "you did a bad thing" versus "you are bad." A demand for an apology is usually more effective than punishment in the room. But, I for one, think a time-out in the room can be very effective.

Now, I don't get so riled up with these books that I don't read the them. I read them with enthusiasm. But maybe I roll my eyes and grit my teeth a little; and gently suggest alternative books. It's the same thing with Skippyjon Jones. (What's with these dumb, silly name books?) That book features a cat pretending to be a chijuajua fighting bean hording bandits in Mexico. The Spanglish-inspired book includes a lot of bean references and other Mexican food references. His alter-ego, "Skipito," makes words Spanish by adding Os to the end.

It's not that the book is offensive. (Though I am troubled that Skippyjon's mother resorts to name-calling when she's frustrated with him.) It's just that a four year-old will take this message to heart and think they can speak Spanish the same way, by adding Os. I know sometimes this might be effective, but you don't want to do it indiscriminately. Meredith is taking Spanish class. She's probably more likely to remember the lessons of this silly book than stuff from her daily class.

A post script. Apparently, First Lady wannabee, Michelle Obama, got to read Skippyjon Jones to a group of Iowa kids recently for the first time. Salon.com's Rebecca Traister humorously describes the scene in her recent article Michelle Obama gets real.

* Honey Bunny Funnybunny is copyright 1997 by Marilyn Sadler. It is partially quoted here for the sole purpose of providing a review.