Sunday, September 24, 2006

Tra La La...Captain Underpants is Educational


My nine year old son still loves Captain Underpants. Though he is a fairly advanced reader (having already devoured the Lemony Snicket series, the Spiderwick Chronicles, and many of the Harry Potter books), he continues to look forward to each of George and Harold's epic adventures. He got Captain Underpants And The Preposterous Plight Of The Purple Potty People in his Scholastic book order* last week, and has already read it several times. And it really is educational - he asked me to define "anarchy" the first time he read it.

I blogged about Captain Underpants and Judy Blume last year for Banned Books Week (here it is if you want to read it) and it's that time again this week.

From the American Library Association's website:

Do you remember the first book you read that touched you, made you laugh, scared you silly or made you rethink the world? Chances are someone has tried to have that book removed from a U.S. school or public library somewhere nearby.

All kinds of books – from Scary Stories by Alvin Schwartz to Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck – have been targeted for all kinds of reasons. Every year the American Library Association (ALA) learns of hundreds of book challenges – or formal attempts to have a book restricted or removed.

Please tell us a about YOUR favorite book from the list below. Each of the books listed has been challenged in schools and libraries in the 25 years since Banned Books Week started.

Here's the survey.

*I would now like to gripe about the all of the non-book items advertised in the Scholastic "Book" catalogs that come home every month (or temptingly shown in the book fairs at school): stuffed animals, small electronics, and Game Boy games all compete with the books - how many kids ignore the books for all of this other stuff?

4 comments:

Mazenbloo said...

Well, I my oldest is only a first grader so I don't think theirs much 'non-book' stuff in the Scholastic offerings. It's mostly all books. I have seen CD's that go with some books and last go 'round I saw they offered a Leapster cartridge. My daughter is a bookaholic and we LOVE scholastic! We just ordered a bunch of books from there a couple weeks ago, then last week bought 4 books from our local bookstore as well as headed to the library that same night and borrowed 3 books (and bout 4 used books there too!) LOL I think we have issues! :)

Sandy D. said...

Other new words for him this week include "vertigo" and "serrated" - the latter from another favorite author : Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (aka Cressida Cowell).

Anonymous said...

Ha ha, I just blogged about Captain Underpants in honor of Banned Books Week. Educational??? I'll have to revise my post. :)

Sandy D. said...

And last night my son's new vocabulary word was "bosom"...