The CPSC put up some new "helpful" powerpoint slides for their staff today (you can read them all here).
Here's the line that's got me ready to move to Australia. Or, better yet, ready to make Congress move to Australia and let the country start fresh. Page 6 has the guidance on children's books (ordinary books safe if published after 1985, limited staff analysis has shown some lead in older books, blah, blah). And then this line:Children’s books have limited useful life
(approx 20 years)I had to read this statement about a dozen times before I could believe it really said this.
What planet do these people live on? Have they never heard of Winnie the Pooh? The Wizard of Oz? Peter Pan? Alice in Wonderland? Peter Rabbit? Charlotte and Wilbur? Mike Mulligan and Mary Ann? I could go on for quite a while.
Maybe, my son suggested, they were referring to the physical book, that volumes wear out after 20 years. Except that's equally asinine. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that there are millions of copies of children's books published and printed before 1989 that are still in excellent, completely useable condition, with content still just as capable of stirring the souls of children or tickling their funny bones or teaching them something interesting. Otherwise, there'd be no one out here making a stink about old books, but there are tons of us.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGGGGAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
I cannot believe this. The HG says the CPSC must have destructive children. I say they ARE destructive children.
What ARE they thinking? Books have a limited shelf life like butter or milk? After 20 years the ideas in them go rancid?
Here's a huge question- What the (insert fierce and fiery expletive of choice here) are they even doing making such a pronouncement? How is this even in their jurisdiction? Their JOB is to discuss and assess SAFETY, not readability, not relevance, not pertinence, not 'usefulness,' and they are clearly utterly ignorant about the children's book field. What does their ill informed judgment on the limited useful life of a child's book have to do with any part of the CPSIA or their assigned duties? What could they possibly mean by such an ignorant claim?
As Whoopie Goldberg said recently in regards to raising her taxes again (yes, she really did) Back offa me!
The Organ Grinders' Garden-Poems Younger Children Love, Compiled by Marjorie Barrows, Rand McNally, 1938.
This book is obviously battered and abused, and it has dangerous staples, too, making it doubleplusungood. We have read it both for the poems and for the charming illustrations within, both of which feed a child's soul and nurture the imagination regardless of the exposed staples and peeling cover on the outside. The poems are by such unuseful authors as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Lear, Rachel Field, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc.
The Boy's King Arthur; Being Sir Thomas Malory's History of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, "edited for boys with an introduction by Sidney Lanier [and] illustrated by Alfred Kappes," published first in the late 1800s, then again with illustrations by N.C. Wyeth in 1917. This timeless story and stunning illustrations, apparently, have a limited useful life and should be forgotten and buried after 20 years.
Move along, move along- there is certainly nothing to see or learn here:
Journeys Through Bookland, 1909, Charles Sylvester. Its limited use ended a hundred years ago, as anybody without a brain can see.
I picked up this next book, The Happy Hunting Grounds, by Stanley Vestal at a library booksale. The illustrations are pretty and even the introduction is worth reading.
The author continues his introduction, describing time spent as a boy among the Cheyenne Indian camps where he played:
These are his memories of an enchanted childhood. In what way can we give such enchantment to our children? What places do they play that will furnish their adult minds with pleasant palaces of imagination? Will indoor play areas such as McDonald's and the malls be a fair substitution for playing in puddles, climbing trees, digging in the mud? What pageants will a childhood spent at planned, sterilized, risk removed, plastic, garishly colored indoor playgrounds present to the adult mind of the child grown up?
Tell the truth. How many of the ladies here shudder at reading about finding happiness at grips with death and how many of the men felt a stirring in their bones?
Clearly a dangerous and subversive book of no use to anybody at all. Hi ho, hi ho, to the landfill it must go.
And books like this one lost their value 2000 years ago or more. Apparently some members of the CPSC are unaware that:
I picked up this next book, The Happy Hunting Grounds, by Stanley Vestal at a library booksale. The illustrations are pretty and even the introduction is worth reading.
"THAT man," says Montaigne, "is truly unhappy who in his own house hath nowhere to be alone." Equally unfortunate is the man whose mind encloses no chosen region of the imagination into which he may at will retire from his usual pursuits.That's the part I liked best. It made me think of Charlotte Mason. And if you and your teens have not yet read any of Montaigne's essays, let me encourage you not to lose any more time.
The author continues his introduction, describing time spent as a boy among the Cheyenne Indian camps where he played:
What I saw then is clear and vivid to this day, though I thought and understood as a child. But when I became a man, I could not bring myself to put away these childish things. Rather I read and studied and saw more of them, and so came to fill the pageant I had seen with the passion and meaning which a child cannot comprehend. This strange and fascinating Indian life, flashing against the calm background of eternal Nature, became my kingdom of imagination. There I roam and adventure as I please. I lie in wait to strike the enemy at dawn. I flay the smoking buffalo carcass. I feel the robe upon my naked shoulders and hear the sunscorched grass crunch beneath my moccasins. I hobble my ponies and pitch my tipi in happy hunting grounds. Hence my story and its title.
These are his memories of an enchanted childhood. In what way can we give such enchantment to our children? What places do they play that will furnish their adult minds with pleasant palaces of imagination? Will indoor play areas such as McDonald's and the malls be a fair substitution for playing in puddles, climbing trees, digging in the mud? What pageants will a childhood spent at planned, sterilized, risk removed, plastic, garishly colored indoor playgrounds present to the adult mind of the child grown up?
Yet this book is made of realities, not romance. Primitive man, never having learned to enjoy his emotions, had no sentimental feeling for the past, and his wildest stories were to him matter of fact. To the man who believes in fairies, they are as real and as concrete as a dog or a stone. The reader must expect no sentimental coloring, and such romantic qualities as the tale may have are inherent in the novelty of its setting. These Indians do not wear beaded moccasins and warbonnets on the hunt. Here is no dress parade, but a stark story of a rude and simple world, where men found happiness at grips with death.
Tell the truth. How many of the ladies here shudder at reading about finding happiness at grips with death and how many of the men felt a stirring in their bones?
Clearly a dangerous and subversive book of no use to anybody at all. Hi ho, hi ho, to the landfill it must go.
And books like this one lost their value 2000 years ago or more. Apparently some members of the CPSC are unaware that:
Who hath a book
Has but to read
And he may be
A king, indeed;
This kingdom is
His inglenook.
All this is his
Who hath a book.
~Wilbur Dick Nesbit
The words 'timeless classic' are but empty words to them. As a John Burgess, commenting to Walter Olson's post suggests:
Were I to hazard a guess, I would guess that the moron who came up with this ‘20-year’ estimate is a <30 who replaces his iPod at least twice a year, if he remembered to get the reminder file transferred from last year’s Blackberry.
Antidotes to this poison:
Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are
By David McCullough (for some of our blog posts on this analogy see here and here)
Popular Culture is Present Tense Culture, by Mark Steyn (I blogged about this one here) Pin It
