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The message in favorite children's books

Neo-neocon has an interesting entry on favorite children's stories, and which were her favorites as a child.

"When I was very little, for example, I detested the familiar story of The Little Red Hen. Its relentlessly self-reliant dog-eat-dog Protestant-ethic world seemed so chilling. Forget "it takes a village"—this was individualism with a vengeance. And yet, later in life, there were times when I found it necessary to apply its heartless lessons, and to Do It Myself (and she did).

A more benign early childhood book was The Little Engine That Could. This one was about trying, trying again; about having in faith in oneself and finally succeeding against huge odds. Being rather little myself, and the youngest in the family, it gave me hope (it’s interesting, also, that the Wiki link mentions the story as being a metaphor for the American Dream; it occurs to me that it could also apply to the jihadi dream).

But a much greater favorite was Ferdinand the Bull. Ah Ferdinand, Ferdinand, he of the fragrant flowers under the cork tree. I didn’t know the word “pacifist” (nor is it mentioned in the book), but the idea of opting out of struggle and strife into a simple life of non-aggression and nature was remarkably appealing.

According to Wikipedia, it turns out that Ferdinand has a bit of a political history. Published around the time of the Spanish Civil War, it was widely seen as a pacifist tract and even banned by many countries. And if you look at the comments at the Amazon listing for the book, you’ll find many people whose lives were quite affected by reading it, citing its "timeless pacifist message."

I'm not campaigning against the book itself, which I loved. But I wonder how many people never grow past the fairy tale notion that evil will disappear if we would just sit under that cork tree and smell those flowers long enough. As one of the Amazon commenters points out, in a real bullfight Ferdinand's lack of ferocity would cause him not to be shipped off to pleasant pastures, as in the book, but to be killed–which is the almost invariable fate of bulls in that activity anyway."

I remember the first two, but don't believe I ever read about Ferdinand. Maybe he came along later. My favorite story for Mother to read to us was "Wee wee mannie and the big big Coo," which is about a very cantankerous cow (Big Coo) that won't behave until told (by Wee Mannie) to misbehave, kick and bellow and then she does just the opposite. I don't think there was a political or pacifist subtext to it, but Mother was very smart, so who knows? She probably didn't know that in the traditional version, Big Coo is threatened with a knife and then she decides to cooperate. Olive B. Miller, the editor of My Book House, probably thought it was too violent an ending for children.