Commercial Books - All Sugar and Sprinkles

Mmmm...mmm....mm. Donut with sprinkles. Just thinking about one makes me want to ditch my blogging and find the nearest donut shop.





Okay, no. No, I'm a big girl. I can resist the urge (for twenty minutes).

But isn't that the effect commercial books have on our brains? Sugar rush pure. By commercial I mean dime store reads that make beach life perfect. I have guiltily indulged in them time and time again. My favorite, the Shopaholic series. Yep. Totally love those. Too much of them, though, and I start to feel a sugar rush coming on. I need a little meat-and-potatoes, and soon. Time to reach for a Lisa See.

So what is the value of commercial reads? They get such flack. They aren't National Book Award material. They aren't Pulitzer worthy. Worse, in the world of kidlit, commercial reads have been dodge balled for rotting out kids' brains, much like too much candy will rot their teeth.

Are they really that bad?

I don't know about you, but after I finished Where the Red Fern Grows a couple of weeks ago (and for anyone who has not read it, it's the Everest of dead dog books, two dead dogs!), I was glad the next books on my MFA reading list were my third grader's Rainbow Magic Series Shannon the Ocean Fairy and Joy the Summer Vacation Fairy. Fluff. Cotton candy fluff.

And just what I needed. I didn't need anymore emotional upheaval. I needed lightness.

That experience got me thinking about the value of commercial reads (and, I'll admit, the stuff for a much-needed second critical paper for my Vermont packet).

If books like Where the Red Fern Grows are the meat-and-potatoes reads (Barrie Summy's parent's terminology. I'm indebted to them for life) then commercial books like the Rainbow Magic Series are dessert. And dessert definitely has its place in a meal.

Dessert is the reward for finishing that meatloaf, or the perfect touch after a filet mignon, or the prize after a mystery meal cooked by (insert name).

At the kidlit level, commercial reads are also educational (just don't tell young readers that). By holding plot, characters, setting, and format constant, emerging readers can focus on the really tough issue at hand, learning to read. They are the chapbooks of our generation.

While I was reading my daughter's Rainbow Magic Series books (which thrilled her to no end because we could talk about them), I got her to read Sarah, Plain and Tall (Newbery winner that is still short enough for her to tackle). We both learned something. Dessert tastes pretty yummy. And meat and potatoes isn't so bad after all. It's all about balance.

Now where's that donut...

Sleeping with the...Scorpions?

I couldn't help but break with my regular, frenetic, MFA writing/studying routine to post about this. I was lying in bed the other night (reading frenetically, of course). Where the Red Fern Grows. A classic I've avoided because it suffers from the painful dead dog syndrome, actually two dead dogs. But, in the name of higher education, I'd decided to tackle it.

I was just getting to the good part where Billy catches his first coon. He races back to the farm to tell his family. He's screaming and jumping and hooting and hollering. He's so worked up, his mother thinks he's been bitten by a snake. She drops everything and runs to help him.

When she discovers it's not a snake bite at all but a captured raccoon, she threatens to give Billy a sound thrashing.

Pretty exciting stuff, right?

Now add to that that this story takes place in the back country of the Ozark mountains in northeastern Oklahoma, about an hour and a half from where I live. As close to home as it gets, really. Plus, it's nighttime. The kids are in bed. I'm alone. With the dog. And I'm reading about snakes. Yeessh.

Something tickles my arm. I reach over to brush it off, thinking my imagination is really getting the better of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see something scurry off across my bed. I bolt upright. I look.

It's a scorpion.

"Holy Sh**!"

At least, I think that's what I said. I was busy rocketing out of my bed as far away from the scorpion as possible. Practically hyperventilating, I dash to the phone and call my dad. Yes, I'm five again, tops, and hoping my father can fix it all. His advice: Kill it.

Gulp. I have to kill a scorpion. In. My. Bed.

Sorry, Wilson Rawls, but now Where the Red Fern Grows not only suffers from the dead dog syndrome but also the dead scorpion one too. After I'd beaten the scorpion very very flat, I called my husband and told him he had to come home right now.

When he finally got home and found me, a shell-shocked bundle of jumpy nerves huddled up under a blanket upstairs on the sofa as far away from my bed and any other scorpions that might be lurking, he had a hard time taking me seriously. In his defense, I must have been a comical sight, only I didn't feel a comical sight. I wanted sympathy. Indignation. Deadly, bug-killing chemicals.

But my husband is from Germany. They don't have scorpions. He doesn't get the whole, "They can hurt you" factor. To make matters worse, he is a Scorpio. He joked that I shouldn't have smashed one of his family members. Ugh.

Seeing as I was not going to get the needed overdose of understanding and sympathy from him, I called my girlfriend down the street, who hates bugs, ALL bugs. Okay, so maybe that was a little selfish, but I needed a lifeline! My friend really rose to the occasion. She listened. She was sympathetic. Indignant. Offered bug-killing chemicals. But in the end, there were two of us not sleeping that night.

Many many dollars later (I called the bug guy out to douse the house; so did my poor friend), it is safe to say, the only scorpio(n) I've slept with for many nights now is my husband...I hope.