Children's Book WTF

Although I don't read as much as I did before Elizabeth was born, I now read a lot of children's books. This heretofore unexplored realm of literature is full of awesomeness: there are many beautiful, clever, fun, wonderful things going on in children's books.

There is also the occasional (and delightful) discovery that makes me think, "What the hell?"

Example the first: we've got this nice, older book called I Like the Country. It tells the story of a year on a farm in prose and song.


The simple farmer milks the cows. His playful, hardy children feed the chickens and pick apples and roam the fields with their faithful dog. His handsome wife tends a vegetable garden. In the spring they plant, in the fall they harvest, in the winter they cut wood.


It's a really good book.

And it gets even better at the end of the book when the simple farmer gets into his airplane and takes off for the city to buy groceries.


Either the author was hopelessly out of touch with the fortunes of mid-century farm families, or I am. If the latter is true, and it was indeed common for family farmers to hop into their closed-cockpit plane for a milk run to the nearest metropolis, I can only ask what the hell went wrong. If Farmer Bob in 1962 can have a plane like that, I should be flying around with a jet-pack right now.