Bad children's book, no biscuit.

I'm really supposed to be packing now, but I had a ranty thing instead, so here it is.

I saw an early reader (these are the books intended for children who are 5, 6, 7 years old, not quite ready for chapter books) about a girl who makes plans that are too big and then can't follow through on them. And it has Helpful Hints at the back for parents about how to tell your child, honey, your plans are too big, you can't do that.

What on EARTH is the point to childhood if you can't make humongous plans that are never going to come to fruition? I mean, that was... basically my entire childhood.

Except for the parts where I made humongous plans that did come to fruition.

Like when I was eight, and knit my baby sister a sweater. Was it a good sweater? Did she wear it? Well, no. But I was eight years old.

Like when I was fifteen, and hand-sewed costumes for me and my friends.

Like when I was fifteen, and spent a year teaching myself Japanese until I could get into a class.

My parents didn't tell me that I wasn't going to be able to do this stuff. They didn't tell me to plan smaller. Maybe it's because I had younger and more troublesome siblings, and they were pleased that I could usually manage to amuse myself, but they didn't ever try to lower my ambitions.

Eugh, I hate books that tell you practical things.

I'm going to quote a bit from my novel, because I feel like it.

I was not a hundred percent sure that there was a God out there, and if there was, I was not a hundred percent sure that God was in the business of telling people what to do. But I did know that I had two parents who were present in my life and who were pretty reasonable people, and I didn’t have much use for a God who mostly told me to pick up my socks and not have sex. I knew this stuff already. (My parents didn't usually tell me not to have sex, any more than they told me not to set off explosions inside the house or go to Bali. It just wasn't likely to happen. But they did still tell me to pick up my socks.)

I also didn't believe that God told some guy, however many thousands of years ago, “Hey, build a ginormous boat in this desert over here.” I liked it as a story, though, because it seemed like the kind of thing God ought to say. There were crazy stupid things that needed to get done, or should have gotten done, or turned out to be wonderful when they did get done. And maybe, if God ever did tell people what to do, it was to stick up for these crazy stupid things that no one in their right mind would ever do otherwise.

Leaving aside the matter of God, that's how I feel about art. There's no use for art about picking up your socks.