Who Writes These Books??

Since today was my first day back with students, I thought I’d write a school themed post.  We have many hilarious stories to tell, but for privacy reasons I won’t be sharing too many.  My advice for teachers and parents is to write down these stories.  It is easy to forget them, but they can sure make us smile:)

Some day I want to write a kid’s book.  There I said it.  It won’t happen soon, but after seeing some of the books that have crossed our paths, I am sure I can do it.  They will publish ANYTHING!!

( We are a two roomed school and do not have a librarian to help us weed out books.  We try hard, but can’t catch them all!)

Here are two funny examples:)

1)  A couple years ago we were waiting for our parents to come over for a presentation.  To kill time, I threw my aid a book and said,

” Here, read this to keep everyone calm.”  What I heard come out her mouth/ the pages, had me needing to leave the classroom.  I will never know how she did it with a straight face.

Intro:  Hey, guys, how are your bananas hanging?  ( This made me giggle and got a few snorts from the older boys.)

Being a book about monkeys in a banana tree forest, I thought nothing much of it….

Plot:  A ONE EYED PINK monster scared of the two BIG, ROUND, FURRY, spiders.

That’s all I remember.  I was pretending to clean a cupboard in the back, but shaking so hard from laughter that I had to leave the room!

To this day, I have NO idea how she read that book out loud.  Luckily, the kids never caught on to more than the slight ” banana” haha.

Seriously, this got published as a children’s book?  Kinda disgusting…but made for good staff giggles.  We need to be on our toes!

2)  This happened more recently.  A series of alphabet books were pulled out to provide extra practice for a student.  I sent it in a file to the library for my aid to work on…in addition to many activities focusing on the letter “N”.

That recess, she came to me with the, ” I am going to kill you,” look.

I could probably quote this book word for word.  Imagine opening this to read to a child…and having to do it with a straight face.

Page 1:Nice Nuts.  ( Peanuts are friendly and wearing smiles.)

Page 2. Naughty Nuts.  ( OOOH.  These peanuts are shown sticking their tongues out at each other.)

Page 3.  Nasty Nuts.  ( Now, they are kicking each other!)

Who got paid to write this?  In a series for children?

I guess these served as a reminder for us.  As parents and teachers we should be aware of what our kids are reading.  There are wacko authors out there and some of the stuff they consider ” child” appropriate is pretty crazy.  The two stories I shared could be chalked up to a perverted sense of humor, but I assure you that they are nothing compared to what is written in some books.  I am in no way a ” stick in the mud,” and these two example made me laugh like a school boy, but please,  just take a bit of time to ask your children what they are reading:)

Notice how I got that ” serious” lesson in there?

Have you had to quit any read alouds because of content??