Two things involving children.

[elisi]

Happy Birthday quietpoet! Hope your day is everything you could wish for! *hugs*

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Then something I've been meaning to share for a while. This is from one of the Cherub's library books, and keeps cracking me up. Clearly someone thought that it was time to update this particular fable for the iPod generation:

"So who'll fetch the flour?" asked Heidi the Hen.

"Not me," said the dog.

"Nor me," squeaked the mouse.

"Oh I'll fetch it myself," muttered Heidi the Hen, and she nipped to the deli and bought it.

(In her little red car. WHAT HAPPENED TO PLANTING CORN AND HARVESTING IT AND TAKING IT TO THE MILL??? Anyway, then she bakes herself a birthday cake which then runs away, is nearly gobbled up by a sly crocodile as it rows the cake across a lake, and is finally caught and eaten by Heidi the Hen and all her friends... Two fables for the price of one!)

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Also, this afternoon, in my front room. (Miss M is 12, Impish Girl 9)

Miss M (musingly): Why is it always the girls with the most make up who scream the loudest?

Impish Girl (dismissively): It's because the girls with the most make up are the stupidest! (Then, contemptuously) Girls with the most make up like Justin Bieber!

Comments

[elisi]

Oh how your children rock. I applaud the dismissal of too much make-up AND Justin Bieber.
Clearly if you bring them up on Doctor Who and Red Dwarf, things turn out OK! :)

I attribute the modernization of children's fables to the same people who thought that The Chronicles of Narnia needed to be reorganized in chronological order because apparently kids can't understand them otherwise.
*rolls eyes* My kids try to grapple with the timey-wimey-ness of Doctor Who, something which gives adults a headache... (KIDS ARE SMART!)

[adoxerella.livejournal.com]

Clearly if you bring them up on Doctor Who and Red Dwarf, things turn out OK!
Anything is better than some of the overly sugary crud they turn out for 'children's entertainment' here in the US. I remember when adults could be entertained by cartoons, too.

(KIDS ARE SMART!)
Indeed. I read in an into to an anniversary edition of A Wrinkle in Time that Ms. L'Engle had to keep telling her editors that when they wanted her to dumb down the science parts of that series.

[elisi]

Anything is better than some of the overly sugary crud they turn out for 'children's entertainment' here in the US. I remember when adults could be entertained by cartoons, too.
Interestingly enough there's a fair bit of quality children's TV around at the moment. There's Horrible Histories (which is easily one of the best comedies around), plus lots of comedians are making children's shows, because they can do (silly, daft, fantastical) stuff they can't on regular TV.

Indeed. I read in an into to an anniversary edition of A Wrinkle in Time that Ms. L'Engle had to keep telling her editors that when they wanted her to dumb down the science parts of that series.
Why am I not surprised?