This book really is slightly disturbing.
We are supposed to be filling our children’s minds with wholesome goodness and yet on every page of this book featuring the old folk tune that showed up in the 1940’s, the illustrator depicts a little girl flippantly saying, “I guess she’ll die.”
Death does come to all of us while the Lord is tarrying and working on His harvest . . . but that doesn’t mean we need to read books to children that show a coldness or numbness to what death REALLY MEANS in eternity. We get that enough on TV.
I know. I’m being sensitive.
I just found myself wondering why I was reading this book to Honey this morning. Yea, I get a little competitive when the Summer Reading Program hits at the library . . but that doesn’t mean that my standard of quality literature needs to deteriorate.
It is a silly song. Of course no one could eat a whole cow at once. But what would stop a toddler from attempting to eat a spider or fly?
And then they will assume they are going to die. Next, they will be so scared they won’t tell us. When they don’t tell us, we will notice they are acting funny and assume they didn’t get enough sleep, or are just being ornery. So they might end up getting punished or worse, spanked. We will get mad, pop a vein, call our husbands to resign . . . all because we read this book to our children and didn’t realize that they thought they were going to die because they accidentally ate the fly on their hotdog.
So, if you choose to read this book, make sure that you explain who Jesus is and that He is bigger than a fly.
Or else, they might think someone is going to come along and put X’s on their eyes.
What did you read to yourself or to your child this week? See my guidelines to link up! Leave me a comment when you do!
