Frindle: A reading rainbow with a pot of shame where the gold should be

I'm a pretty avid reader--I like biographies and other non-fiction, well-written fiction and poetry. For self-improvement, I'll even browse reference now and again. I like grown-up literature as much as the next educated person, but I don't think anything will ever surpass my love for children's literature. It has become evident at this point that I will never outgrow it. My knowledge of this genre is embarrassing, as is my surreptitious gravitation towards the Children's section at Indigo and Chapters. I think it was something to do with how we were raised, because my sister still loves it as well. The other week I was visiting her in Kingston and I had a giftcard from Christmas from Indigo. I've been trying to collect all the books I knew and loved as a kid for my children someday. So there we were, poring over the children's titles after giving the cursory nod towards the new fiction and the non fiction and all the other books that I will never buy but instead check out for free from the library. Especially when, evidently, half the books being published today are crap anyway. So, there I was, flush-cheeked and over-excited by the tantalizing aroma of a series of unfortunate events and george's marvelous medicine, when my sister came across a new series of books, the "Frindle" series.

Let me pause here to bitch about book prices in general. What are these, slabs of gold? I don't need your gilt bindings or the hard-covers or the hand-tipped illustrations or any of that shit. Just give me some looseleaf bound together with some string or what-have-you and we're on. You know in college when you were writing a research paper and ended up printing off hundreds of articles from JSTOR or PubMed or the like? Remember how, after 10 or 15 articles, you made the switch to lined paper because it was more abundant and cheaper besides? Take a hint, publishers. Purchase some lined paper at Wal-Mart during the back-to-school sales in September and mayhaps you can make these babies a little more affordable. Need books cost 20-30-40 bucks a pop? Maybe we shouldn't blame the declining minds of the nation's children on negligent parents, poor school systems or video games. Just make the books cheaper. Let's call it the "No Book Left Behind" Act. I think Congress will go for it. Why is it that I can buy a DVD for 6 bucks but practically have to go without food for a week if I want the new Sophie Kinsella novel? I bought the Harry Potter movie for 1 dollar in Pacific Mall but I read the first five Harry Potter books, frantically and furtively crouched over in bookstores around the globe. It's seriously annoying. Thank god for that market in Bangalore, where I bought all the Harry Potters for a pittance. And what is with movies or tv shows where the characters become interested in a topic, go to a bookstore and buy 10 books on the subject? You see the character, overcome and consumed by some ridiculous mission, in a bookstore browsing through the aisles, indiscriminately piling books up in their arms and then, supposedly, heading for the cashier. I find those scenes highly unrealistic and frankly, offensive. Just once I would like to pile copious amounts of books into my arms and proceed to the check-out. Maybe it's my fault, though. Whenever I go into a bookstore in Canada or the States, all ready to buy a new book, I inevitably end up trying to read said book in the hour before I have to meet someone, deciding that the book is no good anyway without bothering to finish it, and going off to sephora where I end up spending probably the same amount of money on a lip gloss. Also, I DO like the gilt binding and the hardcovers and the illustrations. Oh well.

Oh yes, Frindle. The first rule of a children's lit junkie is to make sure not to get caught. There are exceptions, of course. For example, I doubt that a cashier would bat an eye if a hamster came into a bookstore and demanded the full set of Harry Potter books, hard-backed and with matching book-ends. Everyone reads Harry Potter. If you are buying the Eloise treasury, the complete works of Beatrix Potter, classic fairy-tales of the Hans Christian Anderson variety, or any book that is gloriously bound with its own little traveling case, you're home free, sans embarrassing deliberate un-eye contact with the cashier. These books are absolutely beautiful and they are collectible. They are of the sort that normal people stack on their shelves as decorations (but never actually read) to prove how whimsy-filled their lives are. They are widely loved classics and the cashier/attractive stranger in the more age-appropriate travel or history section need not know these books will be devoured by you upon your return to your home. Books by Roald Dahl or any kind of fantasy of "The Golden Compass" sort may also be excusable. Everybody loves Roald Dahl and fantasy is for all ages. Quirky, lesser-known books, such as E.L. Konigsburg's works, for example, "Up from Jericho Tel" or "A Proud Taste of Scarlet and Miniver" or "The View from Saturday Morning" may also eschew embarrassment. Likely, the cashier will not recognize these titles unless he/she is also a children's lit buff, in which case you are safe. If you are in Canada and female, buying the Anne of Green Gables/Emily of New Moon/Pat of Silver Bush/Magic for Marigold series is acceptable, as the act is patriotic and every little Canadian girl has read at least some of these books. Similar for the "Little House on the Prarie" and American readers.

It is books like "Frindle" with which you venture onto dangerous territory. My sister, lover of children's books, bless her soul, was caught, red-handed, wielding "Frindle". She was perched atop a small shelf in the Children's Department of the Princess Street Indigo Books, delving into the shananigans of Frindle and Co. while I, "Stuart Little" in hand, was deciding between "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and "James and the Giant Peach". She would occassionally remark on her approval of Frindle and the amusing nature of his high-jinks. When she was just about done the book was when it happened. She was caught by a peer, by a fellow grad student who also attends the prestigious Queen's University. The grad student was, incidentally, also purchasing a children's book, but it was one of the fantasy sort, the acceptable sort. My sister handled the situation admirably, laughing it all off, while I hid like a cowering dog among the Princess Collection. However, her face was burning for the rest of the afternoon.

Now, books like Frindle are ne'er for amateurs. Books like Frindle are about third grade boys/girls with penchants for mischevious behavior and their classroom antics. They cannot be described as whimsical, nor are they full of the child-like fancy that would warrant the young at heart's reading them. The writing is big and the book is often bright green with the main character's mug, twisted into a mischevious grin, tatooed on the front. He is often wearing a baseball cap, striped shirt and sneakers. He may or may not be holding a pencil, indicative of the classroom setting, while his nemesis (frowning) and his right-hand man (beaming) stand behind him. The teacher (scornful) may or may not be in the background, wearing those cat-eyed wire glasses and an argyle sweater with her hands crossed in front of her.

If you are a true lover of children's books, you know and love the sort of book of which I speak. These books are like crack to you and you fiendishly seek them out and read them in secret, like any good junkie. But really, you are less like a junkie and more like a dork, a dork with stunted development and possibly a genetic disorder or two. However, you are a well-read dork and will always have a fall-back career as a children's book editor. For your foray into Frindle territory means that you have broken beyond the boundaries of "normal" children's literature readership. You have arrived. Like everybody else, you appreciate "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Goodnight Moon" and "Popcorn" and "The Jolly Postman". (my favorites were "The Secret in the Matchbox", "Alexander and the No Good, Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Day" and "Red is Best"). Of course you love Dahl and Knight and Mongomery and L'Engle. But let's face it: those children books are for pussies. We've all read the Newbury Award books and agree they are excellent. We all love "The Giver" and "Bridge to Terabithia" and "Number the Stars". Who hasn't read "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson" and "Tuck Everlasting"? Those tear-jerkers like "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry", "Where the Red Ferm Grows", "Summer of the Monkeys" or anything classic like "The Yearling", "Little Women", "Black Beauty", "The Secret Garden", or "A Little Princess" are for amateurs. Duh, you like those.

The fiasco with my sister prompted me to fashion a list of the kinds of children's books that are for the real junkies. That, for the thin-skinned and easily embarrassed lover of children's books,are simply unacceptable to be seen buying/reading at a bookstore or, even worse, borrowing from the library. This is true, at least, for young twenty somethings who are too old to read these books and too young to have children who will. Most young twenty somethings in bookstores are stationed by the magazine counter, pouring over US Weekly or GQ, depending on your sex. If you are like me, you enjoy many forms of literature, but you have read the books below multiple times and have deemed them worthy of having ,borrowing, or devouring greedily in a bookstore, crouched among the shadows. I have, of course, bought, borrowed, creeped, or all of the above, all of the below. I guess I'm just a cocksman. Or a children's lit dork who should embarrass more easily.

1) Frindle, obviously
2) The works of Beverly Cleary. If you know that there was a new Ramona book entitled "Ramona's World" out in the late 90s and if you have read it and it is in fact sitting by your bed-side, then you know too much. If you have read every single book Beverly Cleary has published, including the lesser known "The Luckiest Girl," "Emily's Runaway Imagination," "Socks," the Henry and Ribsy collection, "Otis Spofford" and "Ellen Tebbits," then you have read too much. If you hear the word "Oregon" and do not think of Oregon Trail, but rather the beguiling and charming culture of Oregon-residing children in the 1950s-60s-70s (depending on which series), then order the books from Amazon. (n.b. Do not buy "Otis Spofford" from a bookstore and return it after reading it twice. Again.)
3) Lesser-known works by famous children's books authors. This includes "Farmer Boy" or "The First Four Years" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. This includes the entire Austin (pilot: "Meet the Austins") collection by Madeline L'Engle, who wrote the well-respected "Wrinkle in Time" series. Also the Anastasia Krupnik series or "The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline" and offshoot "Your Move, J.P." by Lois Lowry, who wrote "Number the Stars". This includes all the Alice books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, who wrote "Shiloh". If you're Canadian, it means the last two Booky books by Beatrice Myrtle Thompson and the two books that follow "The Sky is Falling" by Kit Pearson. These books are off-limits because it means you have sought out not just one, but entire works of a certain author. This is not normal behavior in most children, who read the more familiar, award-winning titles and begin to read other things or stop reading altogether. And even if said child did embrace these extension pieces, he/she should have forgotten about them by this point, in his/her early twenties, and not be trundling over to the check-out counter armed with "Alice in Rapture", "As Ever, Booky" and "A Ring of Endless Light".
4) Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books. To the untrained reader, the title sounds too ridiculous. Again, buying the pilot "Mrs. Piggle Wiggle's Magic" or "Hello, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle" is less embarrassing than buying, say, "Mrs. Piggle Wiggle's Farm", the last, poorest, and least well known of the series. You should not know about Mrs. Piggle Wiggle at all and you definitely should not know about her farm.
5) The Borrowers. My personal favorite. Again, buying "The Borrowers" is passable because it's a whimsical idea, but not "The Borrowers Afield," "The Borrowers Aloft" or "The Borrowers Afloat".
6) The Boxcar Children. Although, these, like Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys, may now be considered vintage and therefore no longer taboo. Reader's call.
7) Judy Blume books. Now these are tricky, as many of her books convey important messages to the pre-teen and adolescent. "Blubber," for instance, is about bullying and "Iggy's House" about racism. "Deenie" is about outward vs. inner beauty and "Tiger Eyes" about dealing with a parent's death. These books could, technically, be bought/taken out by a young teacher or an older sister. However, taking out a book such as "Are You There God, it's Me, Margaret", with the famous catch-line "We must, we must, we must increase our bust" and menstrual cycle discussion, is never OK. One might buy "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" or "Superfudge", since those books were well-known, but the extension books like "Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great" or "Fudge-a-Mania" are probably unacceptable.
8) "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" or "The Best Halloween Ever". For though the surprising acts of the Hermans may still be a riot to you, it is doubtful that a normal person would share your opinion.
9) The Great Brain series. This is something you should have outgrown in second grade, at best.
10) "Gone-away Lake" and "Return to Goneaway". Aunt Minnehaha and Uncle Pin's cherry meade are not of interest to the common man, nor is the clubhouse of Portia and Julian. Go and pick up a People/Vanity Fair magazine instead.
11) The Ginger Pye series, "The Moffats", or anything by Eleanor Estes.
12) "Glass Slippers Give you Blisters"--you should not borrow or purchase this book, even if you did memorize the entire book word-for-word and recite it to your family during a particularly boring family trip to Hong Kong when you were 10.
13) "Happy Birthday, Little Witch" or the prequel.
14) "Peppermints in the Parlour"--the name of this book should indicate how boring it is meant to be. It is not meant to be a rousing read.
15) "Sideways Stories from Wayside School" and it's sequel, "Wayside Stories from Wayside School" by Lois Sacher.
16) Although "The Cat Ate my Gymsuit" by Paula Danzinger is doable, if you're clutching "There's a Bat in Bunk Five", "The Divorce Express", and "This Place Has No Atmosphere", you're clutching too much.
17) Goosebumps or any of the Christopher Pike books. Not my personal cup of tea, but not acceptable either.
18) "Bunnicula". The goings-on of a vampire-bunny who sucks the life-blood from vegetables should arguably never have been written of.
19) "If This is Love, I'll Take Spaghetti". Need I say more? If it was introduced to you by your librarian, Mrs. Arneson in eighth grade as a book appropriate for young ladies, it should probably not be introduced to the cashier at your local bookstore as your sole heart's desire.
20) And possibly the most mortifying--the Babysitter's Club by Ann M. Martin or Sweet Valley Twins by Francine Pascal. These are not to be borrowed or bought in any circumstance, not even on the internet. Also not to be bought are lesser known works of Ms. Martin, such as "Ten Kids, No Pets," since you obviously read all of the BSC series before venturing onto this shaky terrain.
21) Even worse may be Highlights. I don't know where you would get your hands on these magazines, but if you see them in a doctor's office, restrain yourself from the temptation of Goofus and Gallant and the thrill of finding 13 random objects (including a toaster, a mug and a pencil) in a picture of a forest.
22) Even worse may be the Berenstein Bear collection. For although you may delight in the pictures of Brother and Sister Bear's newly cleaned, and organized room in "Messy Room" and the charming house-shaped night light in "Afraid of the Dark", it just isn't normal.