Thank You For The Gift Card

Recently, fellow blogger and writer Sabrina at Sabrina's Writing Reflections hit her 100 follower milestone. To celebrate, she had a giveaway and randomly awarded one lucky person with a $10 Amazon Gift card. Can you guess who that lucky person might have been? *silly girl waves arms in air* It was ME! 

So I want to thank Sabrina again for the gift card and show you guys what I purchased. I decided to treat my kids and ordered the The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler. We received it in the mail a few days ago and every night I read a few pages to them before bed. So far, we really enjoy it. My daughter is hooked and my son....well, he listens for about a page or two and then he gets frigidity, which is understandable because he's only 3 and the book doesn't have any pictures. It's a big girl book. (; 

 Anyway, I thank you Sabrina and so do my kids.  

Now go and check out Sabrina's blog and wish her a Happy Birthday. She's turning 30 over the weekend and has a skydiving story to share with you!  (: 

The Dumbing Down of Childrens Books

Like many of you, I too read bedtime stories to my kids. Some nights I'll read a short story, while other nights I'll sing to them. And once in a while, I'll pull out the globe and they'll point to something they want me to talk about. Which reminds me, I need to brush up on my geography and world history because some places they point out, I'm like (0_0). 

Anyway, the other day I was rummaging through one of my many storage boxes that I still haven't opened since my move (it's only been 9 years), and I found this 1977 Little Golden book,  Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger. It had that old musty cardboard smell to it and worn edges. And with the exception of a few pages I must have scribbled in when I was a kid, it was in pretty good condition. So I opened the book and started reading and was struck by how different it read from contemporary children's books. The first page contained two sentences. The first sentence contained 73 words and the second, 5. Now, I'm no expert on contemporary children's books but I have a feeling I'd be hard pressed to publish a kids story with a 73 word opening about Kanga. But by the time I got to the end of the book I realized how much the writing has changed since 1977. 

Here are some of my favorite sentences from the book:

- "Look at me jumping, Tigger! Like flying, my jumping will be." 

- There was a crash, and a tearing noise, and a confused heap of everybody on the ground. 

- "Are you hurt?" And he [Christopher Robin] felt him rather anxiously, and dusted him and helped him to stand again.

- "I shouldn't be surprised if it hailed a good deal tomorrow," Eyore was saying. "Blizzards and whatnot. Being fine today doesn't mean anything. It has no sig-what's that word? Well, it has none of that. It's just a small piece of weather."

This got me thinking about certain contemporary children's books and the general dumbing down of the English language, a big topic that is not taken as seriously as it should. So I decided to do a psudo-comparison by pulling out another Pooh book I had, this one printed in 1999, Happy Birthday Pooh! The first page had three sentences. The first sentence contained 7 words, the second 10 and the last 15. Here are some excerpts: 

- "Well," he [Pooh] sighed as he tucked the candles into an empty honeypot, "I'll save the candles for later. Just to be on the safe side."

- "I'd better take a few extra," he [Rabbit] told himself. "Just to be on the safe side."

- Piglet filled his arms with lots of brightly colored candles. "I'd better take a few extra," he gasped. "Just to be on the safe side." 

- Suddenly Tigger came out of the sky and bounced Rabbit with a mighty "Hoo-hoo-HOO!" Piglet arrived at that same moment and found himself squished beneath his two friends. 

While reading this book, I immediately noticed a difference in sentence structure, lower word count, shorter words and a simpler vocabulary. After closing it, I was left wondering when and why this process of simplifying our children's books and reading material in general, became so prevalent. In the United State we are teaching our children to read at a younger age compared to thirty years ago, and yet the level of difficulty at certain levels has actually decreased. Does that sound logical? 

Have you noticed this trend in your daily reading materials? Is this an American phenomenon or do you see this "dumbing down" in your country as well? What is the solution?