The recent Supreme Court decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor sided with the parents of public school children whose county “introduced a variety of ‘LGBTQ+-inclusive’ texts into the public school curriculum. Those texts included five ‘LGBTQ+-inclusive’ storybooks approved for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, which have story lines focused on sexuality and gender.” I agree with the court’s decision. And yet, there is an important issue connected to this case (although outside its legal purview), which I have not yet seen sufficiently addressed. Put simply, it involves the quality of books assigned in public schools. This issue takes us out of the realm of content alone, which has been at the center of the case, and leads us to the bigger civilizational question: What is the purpose of books in public education and, by implication, in our society?
Anyone who takes the time to peruse any of the books involved in this case, such as Pride Puppy! or Uncle Bobby’s Wedding or Love, Violet, will notice the quality of prose. It is similar to the quality of writing in most recent books that are marketed to children—in a nutshell, it is remarkably unremarkable. Simplistic sentences and words accompany the shallow plot. There is nothing to inspire wonder, whimsy, or delight. The authors, on a related note, seem to have no understanding of real children. Their sole interest is their very adult concerns.
Meanwhile, one-hundred years ago this year, A. A. Milne published his first Winnie the Pooh story—“The Wrong Sort of Bees.” While this first story was commissioned originally for the Christmas Eve issue of the London Evening News, the stories about the lovable “bear of very little brain” were, from the beginning inspired by Milne’s close relationship with his son, Christopher Robin Milne. Born in 1920, Christopher Robin was 5 years old at the time of this first story’s publication—thus in the age range of children whose reading materials are involved in Mahmoud v. Taylor.
So what sort of story is “The Wrong Sort of Bees”? Consider this first paragraph:
“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn't. Anyhow, here he is at the bottom, and ready to be introduced to you. Winnie-the-Pooh.”
The sentences are much longer than any you might see in children’s books published in the past decade. The vocabulary is simple enough, and yet the way it is all put together is delightful and memorable. It incites the child to readily visualize the idea of how he too might drag his favorite stuffed toy by the foot head-first down the stairs. This vivid description brings the child into the story from the beginning and inspires knowing giggles. The world of play is rendered ordinary yet extraordinary, all at once.
The rest of the story continues along the same whimsical lines. Pooh is taking a walk through the forest, when he hears a buzzing noise at the top of a tree. Correctly diagnosing the buzzing as bees—and remembering that where there are bees, there’s honey—he tries to obtain the honey in question. This quest brings first Pooh’s friend Piglet and then Christopher Robin and the latter’s toy gun into the story, all to assist Pooh’s complicated plans for getting to the honey. He fails, and that is the end of this story, at least.
The dialogue throughout is quirky and humorous, mixing in the occasional short poem. Is there a moral to this story? Sure. Does Milne ever hammer it overtly? No need. The primary goal is to inspire beauty and delight in small children—his own young son, first and foremost. I can attest that Milne has succeeded. Reading Pooh’s shenanigans aloud to my own children has led to much laughter and joy. The quality of writing is such that I, an adult and a writer myself, can delight in these books too. That is not the case for too much contemporary writing for children.
Other 19th and 20th century children’s classics all feature the same characteristics as A. A. Milne’s stories. The prose is beautiful and thoughtful, the plot is quirky yet relatively simple and easy to follow for young kids, and the moral of the story comes through organically. A five-year-old can readily understand that Peter Rabbit needs to obey his mother and stay out of farmer McGregor’s garden if he doesn’t wish to become rabbit pie. It is good for friends to stick together and help each other, as we see in Frog and Toad or The Wind in the Willows—but also, friends should try to bring errant friends to virtue, as the rest of the animals try to do for Mr. Toad, and as Frog and Toad occasionally do for each other. Adventures are a joy, Harold (of Harold and the Purple Crayon) sees with the assistance of his trusty purple crayon, but there really is no place like home. But also, a picnic made up of your nine favorite kinds of pie is a great picnic indeed.
All of these books have a moral. And yet, the moral of the story never dominates the sheer joy of reading something that is good, true, and beautiful all at once. A beautiful book doesn’t have an agenda; it is beautiful for beauty’s sake.
And so, I am curious to know how many public school districts that have been willing to assign such contemporary books as Love, Violet (about a little girl’s crush on another little girl in her class) or Pride Puppy! (about a family going to a pride parade together) have also been reading to children such classics that have stood the test of time as Winnie the Pooh stories, The Wind in the Willows, or Alice in Wonderland. The problem is not just content—although the books involved in Mahmoud v. Taylor have content that I find objectionable. Rather, the issue is stewardship of time in education.
There is only so much time for books and reading in a busy school day. There is only so much time to shape students’ minds and souls for beauty. I, an adult, am not willing to waste my time on reading books that are objectively bad, so why would I want to make my children read something poorly written and that is certainly not going to be a classic in fifty years? Time is a nonrenewable resource. We will never get back time wasted on something inferior, and it is a shame to waste time in such a manner when there are better options available—it’s not that there is a shortage of good books for children. But also, in addition to the waste of time, inferior books have a damaging effect on children’s love of reading. Put simply, if we want public school children to grow up with a love of reading—and if we think that educated adults are better for our democracy—then advocating for better books in schools is key.
Assigning garbage in schools surely bears some responsibility for the literacy crisis we are seeing at all educational levels. People of all ages—beginning with children—see no joy in reading, because during their educational journeys, they have not been assigned readings that are intended to inspire joy. A school board might try to dictate otherwise, but our minds and souls know the truth.