Tuesday, January 23, 2007

BOOKS: And the Moral of the Story Is...?

"Goddamnit, I hate The Poky Little Puppy. Sam made me read it to him twice this morning."

"Really? He just made me read it to him twice when I was putting him to bed. Why do you hate it?"

"Because he gets away with everything in the end."

"What do you mean? He gets screwed out of the strawberry shortcake and goes to bed feeling sorry for himself."

"Whatever. He still comes out ahead."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he may miss out on one serving of strawberry shortcake, but before that he eats all five servings of rice pudding AND all five servings of the chocolate custard."

"Yeah, but he misses out on the shortcake, which is obviously the best dessert. That's why it's a sad ending for him."

"Shortcake isn't the best dessert."

"What? Are you KIDDING? Rice pudding? Custard? Those suck!"

"So does strawberry shortcake."

"You're crazy. If you don't get that strawberry shortcake is the Cadillac of desserts in this story, then you're missing out on the entire moral."

"This story HAS no moral."

"YOU have no moral."

13 comments:

Alice said...

Mmm, I love rice pudding and custard. I'd probably choose them over strawberry shortcake. What does that say about me?

Anonymous said...

Aww..."The Pokey Little Puppy"! That was a favourite of mine when I was small. My Nonno (whose thick Italian accent made him nearly indecipherable at times) would read call him "De Pokey Leetle Poopy" which would exasperate me. He was a bit of a joker, that man!

Claire said...

...and that's why I love kids books.

Cxx

Anonymous said...

Awwww, I still have my childhood copy of The Pokey Little Puppy somewhere.

I assumed that everyone knew that's why it's a sad ending. Obviously rice pudding (eww) is no substitute for strawberry anything and certainly not for anything involving cake.

Megan said...

I heart the Pokey Little Puppy, partly just because, and partly because we have a basset hound who IS the pokey little puppy (or at least she was in her puppyhood).

Doppelsis said...

Hide it until you're ready, I should say willing to read it again.

Single in the Capital said...

I remember the Pokey Little Puppy! I always felt sorry for him for being sent to bed without strawberry shortcake (maybe that's why I'm not a big dessert aficianado). I also remember powering through my set of Art Linkletter encyclopaedias when I was six ... I guess kids today don't even know what those are, what with the Internets and the Google and all...

Anonymous said...

Strawberry shortcake all the way.

JoanneMarie Faust said...

I so love that I am not the only person who gets involved in conversations like this.

Dave said...

Nice dialogue!

I smell a reality tv show in the making...

Nicole Steeves said...

So's your FACE.

Maya said...

Strawberry shoooorrrrrtcaaake is clearly the best. No contest! However, T.P.L.P. is a) so cute b) what I call my friends' kids, because they look exactly like that.

Anonymous said...

lol..this story traumatized me as a child. My kindergarten class read it and made puppy puppets out of lunch bags. I was the kind of child who took my time with artsy-type projects. Well, my teacher thought I was taking to long to complete the task and refered to me as the poky little puppy in the class. My classmates thought it was hilarious and began taunting me with the nickname. To this day nearly 25 years later, I'm still very self-conscious of the time it takes me to complete tasks.

The other day I happened upon the book at the store and couldn't resist purchasing it. And imagine my disgust to read it and realize that there is absolutely no point or moral whatsoever to the story. So that idiot teacher that I had chose a pointless story and caused me great mental anguish for no reason at all. What type of backward crap is that. Shouldn't children be encouraged to explore and carefully examine the world that they live in, rather than being punished and alienated. Ok, sorry if I'm ranting. And then, why is the reward food? With childhood obseity rates out of control this book has no place in 2010. Perhaps it was appropriate and understood in 1942 when it was published, but it is seriously outdated and my children will NEVER have to suffer through it.