Monday, November 20, 2006

beware the ignorance, it is contagious

This is an open letter to Kindermusik:

What's with all the Kindermusik love? Why the promotion of poor spelling?

Now I'm aware that you'll probably sue me for copyright infringement and to this I have but one thought: Bring It On, if you can spread ignorance like a fucking communicable disease then I'll happily take one for the team. Of edumacated parents, that is.

Why all the hate, you ask? Well... I think you remember my not-so-nice email that I sent you to which you've never responded. It was in this email that I pointed out a false statement in one of your alphabet books: namely that there IS, in fact, an animal that begins with X. Exhibit A showcases the 'X' page of your book Awesome Animals ABC, it states that "X is for x-ing/ No animal starts with the letter 'X.'/But you've all seen animals x-ing, I'll bet."

X-ING? Is that kindergarten slang for crossing? Will my child automatically intuit what in the hell x-ing means? Is it a good idea to erase any doubt that an animal might begin with the letter x? Like, say, maybe the South American bird xenops?
Ooopsy, my bad, it just that we also have this book which clearly marks Xenops as both an animal and beginning with X. This is Animals AtoZ by David McPhail.

As we all can see, there is in fact a "X" animal; why can't we all just do a little fact check before printing blatant lies? I realize that I am culpable of posting whatever I feel like, fact checking aside, but I Am Not An Author Nor Am I A Publishing House. I am merely an invisible blogger (gah) and a concerned parent.

Expecting a reprint within the year,
5penny

P.s. My 4 year old daughter refuses to read this book because she knows it's lying (and lying is BAD!), despite her undying LOVE for Noodles From Scratch.

2 comments:

Norma said...

Hello. I'm stopping by as a member of NaBloPoMo. I have 10 blogs, but this is the only one that sees much action, Collecting my thoughts. Keeping writing!

It does seem odd to introduce kids to such poor spelling. I used to make my own books for my kids.

Kit said...

Xactly!