Foto do autor

Nina Wilcox Putnam (1888–1962)

Autor(a) de Sunny Bunny

10+ Works 58 Membros 1 Review

Obras de Nina Wilcox Putnam

Associated Works

The Mummy [1932 film] (1932) — Original story — 68 cópias

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Data de nascimento
1888
Data de falecimento
1962
Sexo
female

Membros

Resenhas

Adventures in the Open educates in small children's terms how things like night and day, ebb and tide, fire and frost work with upperclass gender-stratified propaganda at work. In some ways this makes for a fascinating read. In some ways it's so bizarre that there would be no way I'd read this as a kid.

As far as likeability goes, I appreciate the education about the natural elements. Many of the things adults don't even know, either because they've never lived in or actively learned about coastal areas. I had no idea what was a damper. One of the most fascinating things to discover in lower elementary school were hemisphere and zones like equatorial, temperate, and arctic. The kids in these stories learned all of these.

I was bothered by the use and art of anthropomorphic elementals. For instance with the art, Mr. Ebb is this monstrously tall but overtly slender man with dark blue-green skin. He magically appears when the kids think they're alone. Mrs. Night, Mr. Frost, and most of the others do the same. Many of them have likeness from other cultures unfamiliar to a kid--this could be fascinating or terrifying, because ultimately you have "people" invading your space at their whim. They're like soldiers or thieves taking over when it's convenient for them, push you around, tell you why this is for the best, and move on. Of course the characters in the book are all benevolent, but the way they approach the kids would be terrifying in real life.

A theme I'm finding with this stack of 1920s and 1930s children's books that an old woman gave me to get rid of--which I'm opting to read through first--is that of the upperclass having a hands off approach to raising their kids about the world through magical characters but the parents themselves perpetuating gender tropes onto their kids.

The boys can be "just boys": rude, playful, and aggressive. This is largely insinuating by comparing to the girls and rarely explicitly said. Meanwhile, every time the girl is introduced or does something, she is explicitly referred to be doing and saying certain things because she's "sweet little girl". The boys can do this, but the girl has to let them have the pie or the adventure because she knows she's a "good girl" and will wait in case someone gives her permission. While it's common in older books to have strong gender roles, they aren't shoved down your throat--literally in this case, propaganda--as these children's books with wealthy households with distant parenting.

One other thing to mention is the workbook at the end of the book. I didn't know there was one until I got there. I had speculated the main characters were around five years old. The content has a lot of preschool content but some of the nature education might be more first grade material. The font and sheer number of words on the page suggest an even higher level. So I was never sure what the audience was--perhaps small children with good attention spans being read to by their parents? Hmm. Not with the aforementioned themes in the book--probably no parents reading all the time. Hmm.

The workbook at the end says it's a part of the second and third grade curriculum.

That makes sense of the font size and the number of words on a page, but otherwise sure makes second and third graders to be very "young", ahem, immature. Usually older school books have kids working at a more disciplined level than their modern counterparts.

Overall, this is one bizarre book.
… (mais)
 
Marcado
leah_markum | Oct 28, 2022 |

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Associated Authors

Estatísticas

Obras
10
Also by
1
Membros
58
Popularidade
#284,346
Avaliação
½ 3.6
Resenhas
1
ISBNs
11

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