No Longer Sacred?

When I was a child, there were certain things adults simply did not do, or allow to be done in the presence of children.  I knew people whom the adults in my life abhorred, yet I knew nothing about their abhorred behavior because, when I was around, it didn’t exist.  However, it seems that nowadays, all bets are off.

One of the reasons I enjoy creating literature for children is because I believe kids deserve to experience something free of the raw intensity of our adult world.  Yet, there are those amongst us who think nothing of destroying the veil between cherished childhood and jaded adulthood… who, in fact, believe it to be not only acceptable, but necessary.

I was afforded the blessings of a wonderful childhood, precisely because I was not exposed to those things no child should ever see.  And I’ve heard the argument before: “But children need to understand what goes on in the ‘real’ world.”  To this, I respond, “And you don’t think they do?”  Let’s give our children a little more credit than that.

There’s a reason children are not allowed into bars, and it’s not because we’re afraid they might pour themselves a highball.  It’s because adults do things in bars, largely because of alcohol, that children have no business seeing or experiencing.

Ratings and age restrictions are in place to protect our children.  The vast majority of our lives are spent in adulthood, so how about we allow kids to be kids for as long as possible.  They’ll have plenty of time to be cynical and jaded.  Childhood is a beautiful time in life… let’s let it stay that way.

Real Books Are Better

Let’s take care of first things first… I absolutely love to read.  Since I’m a writer, that was probably a pretty easy guess.  And I prefer to read real books; please allow me to explain.  By “real” I mean books made from paper, as opposed to electronic books or reading books on a computer screen.  The reason I bring this up?  A friend recently told me how much he loves to read his books on the computer.

Therefore, I have made a list of seven reasons I feel paper books are better than books in electronic form.

1) Books are soft and pliable, something you can cuddle with in bed or in a comfy chair.  Have you ever tried cuddling with a computer?

2) If you accidentally drop a book, you can pick it up and continue reading.  A computer… not so much.

3) You can lie down and rest a book on your face, breathing in the wonderful scents of the paper and binding.  I dare you to try that with a computer.

4) You can set your coffee cup on your book.  Computers don’t make good coasters.

5) You can hide things in books, like money.  Computers tend put up a fuss when you try to stuff things into them.

6) You can make little notes in the margins of your book.  On a computer… Oh yeah, never mind.

7) Finally, what on earth are you going to do with all those great book marks?