Teachy Without Preachy

I have a serious peeve. Tons of books all around abound with themes trying to teach "morals" and "good behaviour" to kids. Quite frankly, I hate Aesop. All those parables really did it for kids books. Every other book published since seems to want to leave their young readers with some Lesson They'll Learn. Just read it. Kids these days are brighter than you think. They'll figure out the stuff to remember by themselves.

Anyway, even as I've tried very hard to keep these execrable books-with-morals-in-them out of the house, I did come across a few really nice books for younger readers (3+ years) a few years ago that dealt with Issues to Grapple With for kids very nicely.

Brimax Publishing's "It Wasn't Me", "It's Rude To Point", "I'm So Shy!" and "But Why", are amazingly cool books that younger readers identify with instantly. A group of four friends, a cat, a dog, a parrot and a rabbit take it in turns to learn social graces and the consequences of ignoring them in such an incredibly charming manner, kids love them! "But Why" deals with the tendency to question every little thing (NOT a bad thing), "I'm So Shy" is about learning to open up, "It's Rude To Point" is about just that, and "It Wasn't Me" is getting over the temptation to fib to get out of trouble.

While on the subject, Pepper, the lovable puppy who learns to be nice at the end of every book is nice enough too. Reprinted by Shree Book Centre, these are are really simple, but can be cloyingly sweet at times, and I haven't found kids hankering to read these. On the other hand, the most outstanding little books with maybe a lesson hidden in the are the Mr. Men and Little Miss series. Written by Roger Hargreaves originally, these books, published by Egmont UK are a serious must-have for travel, for visits to the doctor, and for any place where the child needs to be engaged for long hours on end. I love that these books are so handy to carry around, and Mr. Rude, Mr. Nosey, Mr. Greedy, Mr. Lazy, Little Miss Naughty, Little Miss Bad, Little Miss Bossy and the others happily inhabit a wonderful make-believe world made better by the likes of Little Miss Tidy, Little Miss Sunshine, Mr. Happy, Mr. Brave. Point I'm making - the books aptly represent the vastly differing qualities real people possess, the good and the not so good, the bothersome and the well... Skinny! And they teach kids more about human nature than any fable ever written.