Several years ago, Steve and I traveled to Budapest for a conference. I've always loved going to art museums, so we decided we'd stop by the Hungarian Museum of Fine Arts while we were visiting. Although I have certain eras or artists that I particularly like, I'm always amazed at the new discoveries I make when just cruising through a new museum--the one Fragonard that makes me reconsider my disdain for the rococo; the fantastically ornate salt cellar that makes me think twice about skipping the long hallways of decorative arts.
So I was surprised in this museum to realize that while a lot of the paintings certainly were...old, many of them did not have a whole lot else going for them. I had the striking realization there that just because a painting had endured for 400 or 500 years did not automatically make it a work of art.
I had a similar realization yesterday while reading a children's book to Andrew: just because it's a brightly illustrated children's book does not mean it is any good. So far, we've been lucky--most of the books that have made it onto his shelves or into his library basket are, at the very least, amusing or nicely illustrated. (There was the isolated disaster with the DK Phonics book, which he picked out because of its brightly colored cover and demanded that we "read" to him every night; its utter lack of verbs or any plot was really our problem, and not an intrinsic failing of the book.)
Yesterday, Andrew picked up a book that Steve's mom brought for him at Christmas, one of several gifts that she has given him with the gleeful statement, "this isn't really appropriate for his age, but I gave it to him now anyway." [This is a common trend; rather than buying these things and discreetly asked me to squirrel them away for later, she lets me be the bitch mom who tells him after he's opened them and I've realized what's inside that, no, that shirt won't fit yet, and no, I will not allow him to open the Connect Four game so as to allow him to violently strew the tiny discs about the room...Nice.]
Andrew brought the book over to me, and I figured I would at least try to read it to him, despite the fact that it had a lot more words than his typical preschool favorites. My MIL had told me proudly that it was autographed by the author, so I assumed it was something she picked up at a church function, or maybe at an outing with friends who also have grandkids near Andrew's age.
It started off unthreateningly; while the rhymes were wordy and clunky, the illustrations were cute, and Andrew seemed engaged. It was about a girl who didn't like school, and talked about her difficulties at such length that I began to wonder if it was a story about diagnosing and treating dyslexia. Then an odd feathered creature made an appearance. And then. And then.
The "bird" started talking about flow charts. And bar graphs, with titles like "Days I'm On Time." When I saw the word "histogram," I became very suspicious, and the following pages that talked about "affinity diagrams" and "lotus diagrams" only deepened my concern.
It turns out, you see, that while it is ostensibly a children's book,* it is a children's book published by a national association of quality control personnel, of which Steve's mom is a member. I was keyed into this possibility with the line "You see, if you keep track of whatever you do, you will know if a trend's there, or if the behavior is new..." (Another fave: "the best thing is that all of these tools can connect to create the best outcomes from one week to the next.")
I suppose the book has its uses, and maybe for disorganized kids in elementary school, it has some helpful ideas. But the juxtaposition between vapid industry buzzwords, clunky poetry, and brightly colored illustrations was just a bit jarring for this "Mike Mulligan"-loving mama who was expecting just another sweet book of fanciful characters and amusing wordplay. I may have to ferret this one away for a while, lest I be forced to read it again sometime soon...
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In other news, 6 dpo, 3rd cycle since D&C. Man, am I hoping for this to work.
*I am not linking to it, because I think that someone probably put a lot of thought and love into the book, and I would hate for them to find me mocking their book through a link or a search query. If you're curious, though, email me, and I'll give you the details.
