Comments on: Banning Bill Martin, Jr.

By: Q&A with Bill Martin, not the author of 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear' | DADWAGON

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:33:04 +0000

[...] repetitive) children’s book written by Bill Martin Jr. and illustrated by Eric Carle, most of us said: [...]

By: Bill Martin

Bill Martin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:29:27 +0000

Hi, I was just looking around at various versions of this story, it’s been a fun week with my fifteen seconds of fame, kind of a case study on critical thought in time of celebrity. I enjoyed this version of the story very much, especially where the question of the standards applied by the Texas BOE was raised (though one imagines it’s not so different anywhere else), and Stonerdad’s brilliant Marxist revisioning of Brown Bear.

Bill Martin, author of Ethical Marxism and other critiques of capitalism and the “American system”

By: Nathan

Nathan — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:01:25 +0000

@carly, @stonerdad – If you haven’t seen this already, check out the video from the fantastic Greg Allen over at DaddyTypes. He weighed in yesterday on Brown Bear’s communist meanings, using his kid as a prop. Gotta love that: http://daddytypes.com/2010/01/27/brown_bear_vs_board_of_education.php

By: Carly

Carly — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:52:53 +0000

god save godless brown bear and his polar and panda cousins, for they are quickly read and not endless as the interminable roads of Cars and Trucks and Things That Go. please, texas, in your wisdom, take instead richard scarry from the home libraries of our tired, tongue-tied, tired country! rid us of goldbug, that hidden insurrectionist, and all his impossible Cuban bananamobiles!

By: stonerdad

stonerdad — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:52:31 +0000

@Nathan

you forgot Berkeley. it would be a runaway hit.

and as for being “just a board book” — it seems like it’s only a harmless toy until the kid starts to get a clue, and then starts demanding that you read it over and over and over again. my advice to you is to chuck it before the little one realizes there’s more to it than its culinary aspects.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:12:32 +0000

@Stonerdad, I think you’ve got a potential franchise on your hands. North Korea, Cuba, parts of Venezuela: just imagine all the markets you could break into. For the rest of you hating on the Brown Bear books, I have no idea what the words of the book actually say. My son just chews on it. It’s a boardbook, right, a big fricking chewtoy is all, which makes its banning on ideological grounds even more bogus.

By: stonerdad

stonerdad — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:47:39 +0000

come to think of it, a Marxist kid book could be just the ticket:

“Brown Bear, Brown Bear,
How is it that you were born free
Yet everywhere you are in chains?

It’s because of the Capitalist Running Dog
profiting from my labor!

Capitalist Running Dog, Capitalist Running Dog,
How is it that you have managed to achieve nominal control over the means of production?

I’m helped by the Bourgeois Bunny,
who lives off your surplus value and has a stake in maintaining your servitude!”

By: colleague at time

colleague at time — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:13:02 +0000

I’ll take either of these over Good Night Moon any time. No story arc. And the characters don’t feel sufficiently inhabited, IMHO. Especially the mittens. Plus it only sort of rhymes.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:36:39 +0000

It is a really, really boring book. In fact, it’s probably the only book in existence that would be spiced up by the addition of some Marxist rhetoric.

By: stonerdad

stonerdad — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:21:38 +0000

good. i hate this book, as well as the “rollicking followup” “polar bear, polar bear, what do you hear?” I wish i could ban them both in our house!

you guys should post a list of books you like, because i bet x and i would like them too!