Character Assassination Carousel: Clifford The Big, Dumb, Red Dog

Friends, family, stalkers...I'm pleased to announce that I have found other mothers like myself, who have realized 99.9% of children's books are full of gross inaccuracies, mind numbing plots and leave most of us asking the heavens, "Did someone really get paid to write this shit?!"  After some soul searching and cyber-stalking, I came across an ingenious woman, named Nicole Leigh Shaw, who has created the Character Assassination Carousel, which invites bloggers to express their disgust over books we are forced to read, not once and definitely not twice, but over and over again to our children.




A few weeks ago Jennifer at Beyond The Crib threw off the gloves and took down, no eloquently destroyed, Olivia...and the Missing Toy by Ian Falconer.  Today we are going to take a little ride with Clifford, the big, dumb, red dog and in a few weeks check out Tracy at Crazy as Normal.

Now that I've had a child, I've realized that there are so many things people neglected to tell me before I embarked on this journey.  For example, I heard people tell me many times that the baby weight will just fallll off after I start breast feeding.  LIE.  You know what falls off?  Your self-esteem because that weight ain't going nowhere.  Second thing I was never told - Facebook will be the death of you as a mother.  Did you buy a pumpkin outfit for your two month old so they could be photographed in it for three seconds?  No?  What?  No, Thanksgiving onesie?  How will your 11 week know it's a holiday?  Are you trying to torture your child?  You know what I should have been told/warned - you will begin to loathe your high school and current friends after you see their endless baby holiday pictures.

And, the last thing I was never told, and something I would like to publicly warn future mothers of, is the utter ridiculousness of children's books.  I'm not saying reading to your child is bad, I'm just saying the books you read to them make NO SENSE.  None. Take for example, Clifford the Big Red Dog.  First of all, there is not a government on the planet that would allow this ginormous dog to run around. It would be put down and sent to a lab for testing before Will Smith could even think about becoming some hero and flying an alien spaceship into its brain.  Second of all, what parent thinks a dog the size of a house is a good playmate for a girl named Elizabeth.  Are they hoping that Clifford by accident eats Elizabeth so they can stop paying for cheer camp?  And when the authorities come questioning her whereabouts they can just shrug their shoulders and say, "I think our dog ate her."  This is okay for homework, but to get out of parenting is just unacceptable.  And lastly, let's be honest, this dog is huge.  According to the book, which I'm taking as fact, Clifford bathes in a pool, eats large amounts of food and sleeps in a house equally as large as Elizabeth's house.  So, let me ask you this: 1. What family in their right mind would spend millions of dollars to house, feed and care for an animal that could at any point sit on them and instantly kill them?  2. And you know you are all wondering this...who cleans up this dog's poo?  I mean seriously.  His dumps would cover neighborhoods. 

I just want some realistic books.  None of these stories of a grown man hanging out with a talking monkey, some bird asking everyone if its his mother (don't get me started on this depressing story) or about a genetically mutant dog.  Is that too much to ask?