Authors I Love to Hate

You know what I’m talking about. Someone mentions their favorite writer and you’re all like EYE ROLLLLL. Of course, everyone has their own literary taste, and we shouldn’t judge one another, but we should understand that one person’s favorite is another’s nails-on-the-chalkboard.

Now you know me and how I get very emotional about my favorite writers and books (i.e. just say “Thomas Mann” in my presence and I melt into a puddle of devoted awe). Not surprisingly, I have equally strong emotions when it comes to those works that…irritate me.

Below are some authors who make me impatient, irritable, or just downright tired. I know this list will anger some people, so just direct all of your hate-mail to rachel@fakeemailaddress.blah. Thanks!

An Absolutely Serious Analysis of TOOTLE

I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Tootle, far from being a cute children’s book about a curious baby train, is actually virulent fascist propaganda.

Now, my 3-year-olds are a little obsessed with it, and that’s fine. It’s pretty amazing that they’ll sit through such a relatively lengthy book right before bed. The content, though? Well, it’s really problematic, but if my husband and I were to try reading a different book while surreptitiously dropping Tootle into an industrial shredder, the twins would drop us into the industrial shredder instead so…

But seriously, people. According to the story, this baby train named “Tootle” goes to train school and takes classes in stopping for red flags, staying on the rails (NO MATTER WHAT), and all kinds of other things. But Tootle, being a curious, rambunctious creature, takes off-rail romps through meadows, racing horses, making daisy-chains, and generally having a helluva time. But the citizens of the town realize that Tootle is breaking the cardinal rule (staying on the rails) and they get together to teach him his lesson: i.e. do what you’re told and stay on the straight and narrow or we’ll make you cry.

Books We Hope Nobody’s Checking Out

You may have seen this recent story about the United Nations library and how its most “popular” book of 2015 was entitled – wait for it – Immunity of Heads of State and State Officials for International Crimes.

Yup.

Now, only a few people checked it out BUT STILL. Pretty disturbing. So of course we here at Book Riot started thinking about other examples of books we would hope certain people would not ever ever ever check out.

**Note that these titles were all made up by us and do not exist in the world (at least, we hope not).**

An Absolutely Serious Analysis of GOODNIGHT MOON

My beef here is not with the author so much as with the illustrator of Goodnight Moon. But don’t worry, Margaret Wise Brown- you’re not off the hook.

I mean, COME ON, Clement Hurd, what are you trying to do, burn my retinas with your orange and green and blue insanity? Why does this room have to be so crazed with color? It’s like a circus vomited on a neon-art convention and the Hazmat team arrived waaay too late.

If my parents had read this book to me when I was little (and thank god they didn’t), I would’ve had nightmares- red balloons, green walls, red carpet…didn’t I read somewhere once that too much red in a room could drive someone bonkers? Makes sense to me.

Book Banning BINGO

You guys, I’m really, REALLY sick of these book-challenge stories.

I mean, I listen to Jeff and Rebecca talk about them on the Book Riot podcast, and I read about them online, and I just absolutely dread the day my kids come home from school and announce that a book they’re supposed to read for English class has been challenged by someone’s mom and so they’re not reading it for class anymore.

In case you didn’t know, I have a particularly ragey place in my heart for book banners, book challengers, and anyone else who points to a book and whines “ohhhhhh think of the children, think of their pure, sweet, blank-slate minds!!!!” In some cases, the challenger hasn’t even read the book in question, or has read only part of it. It’s just that they heard that there are references to LGBTQ issues or there are some f-bombs sprinkled throughout. WHAT WOULD THAT DO TO THE CHILDREN OH FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE.

An Absolutely Serious Analysis of THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

What even is this book.

I mean, yes, it’s about a very hungry caterpillar. He’s so damn hungry, he eats, like, the whole world, and then gets really big and turns into a butterfly the end.


But let’s look more closely at this seemingly innocuous children’s classic. After all, we wouldn’t want to be sending the wrong messages to our children, NOW WOULD WE.

Keep Your E-Reader, Ditch the Fancy Contacts

Yeah, I know that it’s the end of the 21st century, and I’m aware that a new technology exists in the world of books, but I. Don’t. Care.

So you can take your fancy-schmancy Book Contacts that come loaded with millions of books and that weigh approximately nothing and stick ’em where the sun don’t shine because you’ll have to pry my e-reader out of my cold, dead hands thank you very much.

I mean, why would I want to mess with putting a thin piece of glass in my eye that could easily fall out and get stepped on when I can feel the heft of my e-reader in my hand and smell the delicious plastic and glass aroma when I bring it up to my face??! And what would I put on my shelf if I didn’t have an e-reader? It would look so empty, that shelf. I like when people see my e-reader sitting there, and think about how well-read and cultured I am. Plus, I don’t really feel like I’m reading if I don’t have that tangible device in my hand. Something in my eye, though? Puh-lease.

An Absolutely Serious Analysis of BUT NOT THE HIPPOPOTAMUS

First, let me just clarify for those out there who might not understand that I’m being horribly, horribly facetious in posts like this, that I absolutely love Sandra Boynton because her books calmed my twins when they were crazy almost-toddlers– without fail.

But now, because it’s just so much fun and I really can’t help myself, I shall proceed to critically dissect and analyze Boyton’s classic But Not the Hippopotamus as if I were a stereotypical Dry Old Professor with absolutely no sense of humor. If I were this person, what would I write if someone asked me to produce a close-reading of this text? Well, you’re about to find out.

10 Things That Happen When You Read a “Real” Book

Thank GOODNESS for this article on the benefits of reading actual books! I mean, I was reading the fake stuff (i.e. ebooks), thinking that I was actually consuming the real thing!

According to this ridiculous inane unbelievable informative piece, reading “real” books will make you smarter, help you concentrate better, and even make people think you’re sexy!

But here are even MORE things that reading “real” books will do for you:

An Absolutely Serious Analysis of CLICK, CLACK, MOO

I recently took my kids for their yearly check-up and the pediatrician gave them each a new book: Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type and The Ant and the Big Bad Bully Goat. Of course, I was pleased. I mean, FREE BOOKS.

We took them home and I read them aloud to my boys. And wow the disappointment. I mean, Click, Clack, Moo, has so many problems. What a terrible book. I decided to write a critical analysis of it here on Book Riot to explain why I was so irritated by this supposed classic.

So You Want to “Read Deeply"?

I’ve been on a tear lately against all of those people who claim that the internetz are destroying our ability to read books. Because puhlease.

And I started wondering what these people thought they meant when they bemoaned our supposed inability to engage in “deep reading.” What is “deep reading?” Well, here’s how a recent Time article put it (warning: nonsense up ahead)

"slow, immersive, rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity — [it] is a distinctive experience, different in kind from the mere decoding of words… A book’s lack of hyperlinks, for example, frees the reader from making decisions — Should I click on this link or not? — allowing her to remain fully immersed in the narrative."

Ok, ok, if people are so concerned about our abandonment of “deep reading,” I have a few helpful suggestions for how to keep this practice going: