Dear Santa ....

As someone on the front line as far as Christmas is concerned, in the children's section of a book shop I am almost as christmassy as the elf they once had me dress up as, I have noticed an alarming trend in children's picture books in the run up to Christmas. They are getting ruder and slightly more disgusting. Not that it's completely limited to christmas books as I did see one Dirty Bertie noisy book entitled 'Pooh, Is that you Bertie?' and when you press the button it emits a long wet fart sound, beautiful stuff.

Anyway last Christmas some guy from Busted (other random now forgotten pop group) wrote a children's book called the Dinosaur who pooed Christmas. Now you might be thinking you know what this is about but the reality is worse. As a responsible bookseller (and lover of books) I read most of the new picture books as they arrive and I felt the bad kind of dirty after reading this one. The basic plot is about a not very nice little boy who demands a dinosaur for Christmas and to teach him a lesson, Santa gives him a mean dinosaur that eats all the presents, decorations, the tree and then his entire family. The kids sees the error of his ways and then the dinosaur saves the day because it turns out eating all those non food items does not agree with him so he gets violent diarrhea and poos everything back out again. Let me just tell you the illustrations are very graphic and made me grateful it was just cartoons. I would worry that disgustingness aside this might be quite the traumatic read for a child so only read it to your least favourite child.

Then as a spin off of where's wally some one thought where's Santa's pants would be a great idea. You have to look for Santa's trousers among hundreds of other similar items. Good idea and it improves powers of observation and concentration, right? hmmm has anyone ever stopped to ponder the worrying implications that there's a pant-less old man wandering around and he wants your kid to help find his trousers. Yea suddenly doesn't seem so brilliant now, does it?
I actually thought that was the most unintentionally inappropriate book I was likely to encounter for children until some other genius thought to take it a step further and give us 'Where's Santa's Suit'.
I was showing this book to someone today because I couldn't believe no one thought, upon publishing this, that It might not be the most appropriate book for a child. At the start of the book the Santa wakes up with only a cushion to cover his modesty and needs help finding his socks so yea for two pages all he has on is a pair of socks, next his y-fronts and then a vest so skanky it can only be a wife beater. It's only slightly more child friendly than the joke adult 'where's willy'
I am certain there will be some kids slightly concerned this christmas about the idea of a man who's going to be in their room while they were asleep and he has trouble finding his clothes.


I read another today about a very gassy santa who is dying to fart after eating some sprouts but his elf wont let him. The least worrying of the bunch I might add. I found that after all these books had come to my attention my brain was primed and I started seeing stuff that really wasn't there in kids books. Perhaps I need to get out more. There was a babys first christmas touchy feely book that got me giggling as one of the things it had for you to feel was a brown scratchy sack. Ah maybe you had to see it to get it and I spotted one of the bargain pop up books is called Shhh Santa but by this stage I'm probably reaching.

I can't see how anyone can top this but maybe next Christmas will prove me wrong and while on the subject if in appropriate, am I the only one who thinks the new Disney cartoon is poorly named. I was telling someone we may not get the new Doc Mcstuffins book in time for Christmas and It was only as they laughed at the title I thought it was a name probably better suited to an adult entertainment actor but perhaps that's just my twisted mind.

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