Rot-Tinted Glasses

"SENSITIVITY READERS" ARE NEITHER.

'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and--
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
~Roald Dahl, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”

STOP RE-WRITING OTHER PEOPLE'S BOOKS, DAMMIT.

Make no mistake--this rampage of literary vandalism is not some altruistic public service that enlightened publishers are providing to humanity so we can live in an offense-free Utopia. This is a lucrative industry of radical cultural dismantlers and ideological bolsheviks, bullying their way into concocted "consulting" or "strategist" positions in order to destroy art and exact whatever doom they think the West has coming to it. Complicit are the craven publishing houses, and the estates (families) of dead white writers who are no longer alive to defend their work, who betray their sacred trust--and the loyalty and devotion of legions of readers (like me) who cherish these works.

Gosh golly, you know? Most of us clueless old 50-somethings somehow managed to grow to adulthood as reasonable, kind, cooperative human beings, despite having read, with innocent wonder, offensive tales of "plump" kids, and gum chewing brats, and ugly child eating witches, and beautiful princesses resurrected from eternal sleep by true love's kiss.

What are the qualifications and credentials required of a person being paid as a "sensitivity reader" for children's books? I imagine they might be: a septum piercing, neon hair, a gender-fluid self identification, a hatred of dead white guys (and live ones), a DEI certificate from some online course, and a resentful, nasty-minded, nihilistic, shriveled soul.

I was shaped by the voracious reading I did during my primitive, analog childhood. You know, those long ago days when we had four channels on TV and we loved books more? When we “played pretend,” and, I dunno—went outside?? From a very early age, I had a pretty solid grip on the difference between fiction and real life. I didn't grow up thinking that fat kids deserve to be made into Wonka fudge, or that everyone but the Fairest in the Land is doomed never to live happily ever after.

I was a marginalized child; I was a little, sensitive, asthmatic, precocious, effete gay boy who was relentlessly picked on. I found solace and empowerment identifying with Charlie Bucket, and Meg Murray, and Colin Craven, and James Henry Trotter, and Alice and The Little Prince--all those sad, lonely misfit role models of my youth, whose pluck, and optimism, and ability to dream something better catapulted them from zero to hero. Those fictional friends saved my little gay life.

Little Me

You don't create confident, open minded, self assured, sensitive people by wrenching their innocence from them at the age of five, sexualizing them too soon, filling them up with adult anxieties, denying them those fleeting, brief, halcyon, terrible, wonderful few years in which to dream and strive; the time to come home grimy, with skinned knees and sunburned noses; to cackle with your little friends over gross-out jokes and silly stereotypes that you know are inappropriate and also, not real. Those precious few years when they can believe in ghosts and Santa and Voldemort, and beauty, and the triumph of good over evil—the freedom to reach with their minds!!

Augustus Gloop didn't make me fat phobic. Reading about Wendy playing "mother" to the Lost Boys didn't turn me sexist or imbue me with toxic masculinity. Reading Lord of the Flies in 8th grade didn’t turn me into a savage. Many of the things I experienced in my childhood were damaging, and took years to work through--but reading books wasn’t one of them. Books were my escape; my salvation. That's why I still love them—those salty, mischievous, inappropriate, scary, delicious stories of childhood. All that reading made me the writer I am today.

So, Publishers: let parents parent, okay? Parents: how about parenting instead of being their best fwend? Let kids ask all the questions about what they read, and be willing to take the time to try and answer them. Even more courageous and loving? Admit when you don’t know the answer. And all you meddling woke Carrie Nations with your censoring hatchets and dirty minds, your pompous certainty about right and wrong: stop profiting off of fear and ignorance, whilst coddling and Frankenstein-ing a generation of weak, neurotic narcissists who won't be able to cope with what REAL life will inevitably confront them with. That sh*t ain't fiction! And the actual fiction they read now—those imaginative adventures, the battles and scares and exaggerations and fantasies and bullies and insults and offenses!—will prepare them for real life. Pass on the good stuff we enjoyed! Enable them to become brave, real, vulnerable adults who are willing—hell, eager!—to make mistakes and learn from them, to offend and to forgive.