I remember being a little girl and obsessively looking at a full spread of Maurice Sendak's monsters. I looked at it much like I now look at boils bursting in YouTube videos, or the Guinness Book oddities, I can't help but look. I wanted to see something that scared me, because in life I was scared, and Sendak gave me an outlet for that. I had control over when I was going to be scared, and when I would shut the book.
“I remember my own childhood vividly...I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn't let adults know I knew. It would scare them”
― Maurice Sendak
I am very excited to say Happy Book Birthday to a book that honors this tradition of speaking to kids in a voice much like their own, Peanut Butter & Brains, by Joe McGee. I first heard of this book a few years ago at a Rowan University Reading. Joe had been in Grad School at Rowan when I was in Undergrad. I remember thinking what a great idea. Sure a Zombie who alters his taste buds. Even then in the audience, I heard the makings of a great children's book. It had humor, a tight narrative, and a quest. |
As a mother, I always consider, will this scare some kids? I think of my own children as toddlers and remember for a long time we couldn't go into party supply stores in fall. Or how after one poorly supervised cartoon viewing, and an incomprehensible amount of hysterics the word "vampire," was deemed a curse word in my house. And admittedly, I have been called a hover mother on several occasions. So even the question on a book about zombies where they are not in full on zombie gore may seem ridiculous the hover mother had to ask, will this scare kids?
“. . .from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.”
― Maurice Sendak
When I consider a book like McGee's Peanut Butter & Brains, I consider what a child will respond to. When I heard, McGee read his story, I heard it like a child. I heard Zombie, that is cool and a little scary. I was intrigued by the humor, the repetition, the quest. When I consider, is it a little scary, I say yes, it is. In all the right ways. Scary in the way that Halloween is scary for adults, pretend scary. The child reading this book gets to pretend they are afraid of the zombie, this empowers them with a knowledge that fear is sometimes within our control.
“Grown-ups desperately need to feel safe, and then they project onto the kids. But what none of us seem to realize is how smart kids are. They don’t like what we write for them, what we dish up for them, because it’s vapid, so they’ll go for the hard words, they’ll go for the hard concepts, they’ll go for the stuff where they can learn something. Not didactic things, but passionate things.”
― Maurice Sendak
To never be scared is to never feel challenged. The child who reads books that challenge them to think, that present a quest they are excited about will grow in an environment where they can always close the book. Then when faced with challenges in real life they will hopefully have the critical thinking skills established and the emotion recognition to come up with real life solutions. At the onset of his literary career, Joe McGee appears to be following in the footsteps of the greatest children's writers, by writing a story that engages kids rather than talks at them.
Available in book stores Today! Order your copy here: Peanut Butter & Brains: A Zombie Culinary Tale