Review of Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!
(Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed! was provided to me free of charge by Mind and Media, who received it from the publisher for the purpose of being reviewed.)
I have been hoping the day would never come that I would have to review a book I didn't like, but here it is, and here I go.
I read Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed! by Katharine DeBrecht for the first time the day after I received it in the mail. My initial reaction was negative, so I put the book down and waited a week. I re-read it this afternoon, and my reaction hasn't changed.
There are two areas that I look at when I am reviewing a book: content and quality. A book can have very good content, but still be of low quality if it is poorly written or poorly edited. A book can be of high quality, and still be lacking or false in its content.
I'll start with quality. This book is geared toward children. The story in the book is about two boys who want to earn money for a swingset. They decide to start a lemonade stand. That night, they have a dream that they're operating their lemonade stand in a very scary place called Liberaland. The story is a platform for speaking out against the liberal agenda. None of my children enjoy reading or hearing books of this type. If the story is contrived or unbelievable or poorly written, my kids won't pay attention long enough to get anything out of the "moral" of the story. There are also some grammatical errors in this book that make me question the editing process. I'm not saying that all authors should be perfect in this area, but these mistakes should have been taken care of at the editing stage.
As to content, the explanation of the liberal agenda is very shallow. We're told that many areas of the liberal platform are bad, but there is no explanation of the conservative side of these issues. I want my kids to be able to think for themselves, not just to be told "liberal equals bad, conservative equals good".
I disliked the use of caricatures of specific liberals in the drawings. Mayor Leach is an exaggerated Ted Kennedy, Senator Clunkton is a dead give-away for Hillary Clinton. I would have preferred to address the issues without taking shots at specific people, especially in a book aimed at children.
I agreed to review this book because I consider myself fairly conservative. I disagree with Ted Kennedy, the Clintons, and other liberals as much as the next conservative, and yet this book still bothered me. I may be mellowing politically, because I'm seeing more and more that neither political extreme has ownership of what is right and good. There are definitely some no-debate issues, such as pro-choice vs. pro-life, but there are also some issues that aren't so clear cut.
In a book geared toward kids, I would have liked to see a more intelligent presentation of the pros and cons of the liberal agenda, and also a look at what the Word says. I never want my kids to believe a certain way just because Mommy and Daddy told them to. I want them to think for themselves, study Scripture, and come to their own conclusions. For this reason, I won't be reading this book to my children.
I have been hoping the day would never come that I would have to review a book I didn't like, but here it is, and here I go.
I read Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed! by Katharine DeBrecht for the first time the day after I received it in the mail. My initial reaction was negative, so I put the book down and waited a week. I re-read it this afternoon, and my reaction hasn't changed.
There are two areas that I look at when I am reviewing a book: content and quality. A book can have very good content, but still be of low quality if it is poorly written or poorly edited. A book can be of high quality, and still be lacking or false in its content.
I'll start with quality. This book is geared toward children. The story in the book is about two boys who want to earn money for a swingset. They decide to start a lemonade stand. That night, they have a dream that they're operating their lemonade stand in a very scary place called Liberaland. The story is a platform for speaking out against the liberal agenda. None of my children enjoy reading or hearing books of this type. If the story is contrived or unbelievable or poorly written, my kids won't pay attention long enough to get anything out of the "moral" of the story. There are also some grammatical errors in this book that make me question the editing process. I'm not saying that all authors should be perfect in this area, but these mistakes should have been taken care of at the editing stage.
As to content, the explanation of the liberal agenda is very shallow. We're told that many areas of the liberal platform are bad, but there is no explanation of the conservative side of these issues. I want my kids to be able to think for themselves, not just to be told "liberal equals bad, conservative equals good".
I disliked the use of caricatures of specific liberals in the drawings. Mayor Leach is an exaggerated Ted Kennedy, Senator Clunkton is a dead give-away for Hillary Clinton. I would have preferred to address the issues without taking shots at specific people, especially in a book aimed at children.
I agreed to review this book because I consider myself fairly conservative. I disagree with Ted Kennedy, the Clintons, and other liberals as much as the next conservative, and yet this book still bothered me. I may be mellowing politically, because I'm seeing more and more that neither political extreme has ownership of what is right and good. There are definitely some no-debate issues, such as pro-choice vs. pro-life, but there are also some issues that aren't so clear cut.
In a book geared toward kids, I would have liked to see a more intelligent presentation of the pros and cons of the liberal agenda, and also a look at what the Word says. I never want my kids to believe a certain way just because Mommy and Daddy told them to. I want them to think for themselves, study Scripture, and come to their own conclusions. For this reason, I won't be reading this book to my children.
posted by Carrie @ 5:56 PM
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