Children's books

I went to town with one book (Emma) a couple of days ago. I spent three hours in town, and then I came home with eleven(!) books. Five of them were children's books, and yes, I borrowed half of the ten books from the library. But that also means that I bought five books, so now I am the proud owner of the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy by Philip Pullman and 'Mystical Beasts and where to find them' by J. K. Rowling. I guess that is what makes me happy, as a girl who loves books. It is a really special (and good) feeling to buy a new book, open it for the first time, smell that wonderful new book smell and know what lies ahead of you, and finally place it in your home library in its designated place.

I thought I would make the time forward 'Roald Dahl week(s)'. I am reading his children's books, but although they are written for children, they can be quite disturbing. Like, for example, on Tuesday I completed 'The Twits' ('Dustene' in Norwegian). One of the things Mr. Twit did was paint a dead tree in his garden with super sticky glue to catch birds for his bird pie. One day four boys got stuck in the tree, and he wanted to eat them (but they got away). Seriously. How can you write stuff like that in children's books and get away with it? In all (or most) of his books, Roald Dahl is not very kind to grown-ups in general (that was a British understatement :P). It's like he is advocating the same moral as in Peter Pan (which I have never seen in its entirety, by the way), that children never should grow up. But in Peter Pan it's all cute and stuff, and it is possible to understand why.

In Roald Dahl books, however, the message is really gross and scary. But I sort of understand the thing, though. Roald Dahl doesn't want children to grow up to be grown-ups like the sort in his books. The sort who hate children and don't understand about families and bring up their children the wrong way. Basically staying childlike but not childish your whole life. By the way, most of the heroes/heroines in Roald Dahl's books are children who are really smart and not childish.

Oh, it just occurred to me that not everyone understands the distinction between childish and childlike. I suppose I define it like this: Childish is when you like throwing sand at people, eating dirt, bragging, talking/laughing about poop, and so on. The argument 'I was here first' and the act of 'if yours is better than mine I'll knock yours down' also qualify for the term. Childlike, however, is being open-minded, trusting, and thinking outside the box. My mother always says (tell me if I'm not allowed to quote you, Mom) that politicians often resemble children playing in the sandbox, throwing sand at each other and arguing over who has the biggest digger. I thoroughly agree. Politicians in general argue over very childish things, and if they would just stop to realise what they are really doing, I think maybe things would get done faster.

Oh well. I suppose this blog post has turned into a rant. Deal with it! I suspect there will be more. And on that note, I will finish this blog post/rant. Goodbye!

Books read: 5
Pages read: 1825