BABYMOUSE

BABYMOUSE by Jennifer L. Holm 

Jennifer L. Holm is a gifted storyteller and is praised and loved for her success with her pink graphic novel series, BABYMOUSE. A Newbery Award winning author and three time recipient for the Newbery Honor, Jennifer Holm created a story that focuses on the life of a young female mouse and her life at home and in the halls at school. Much of the story revolves around the life of young mousling who is trying to fit in at school. She wants to be popular, pretty and essentially queen of the world but will she ever fit in and befriend the inner circle of the popular crowd? While this story is a great way to promote early literacy for young readers, the message it sends to young readers is superficial at times.

      BABYMOUSE spends most her time compensating for the like of beauty, glamour, excitement and adventure in her daily life by mentally believing herself to being Queen of the World, prettiest or most popular girl at school. While everyone is certainly concerned where they socially stand in school, so many books appropriate for tween readers seem to be saturated in the same themes of popularity, striving for perfection and being famous. While I enjoyed reading BABYMOUSE, I was left feeling like I had read the story before. With the market for tween books focused on such a narrow topic, are these series and graphic novels becoming unhealthy for our kids to read?

Princess Diaries

The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot

Princess Diaries was perhaps the most popular book when I was in middle school, every girl had the books and during silent reading you better believe we were all reading about Princess Amelia and talking about how cool it would be to have that lifestyle. A slightly different take on fame, Meg Cabot the author of many popular young adult/tween fiction, Princess Dairies was perhaps her biggest success that became a very popular series among tween readers. The Princess diaries is about a young girl growing up with her mother in New York City and going to a private school where her father wasn’t in the picture. What she soon finds out was that her father was a prince of some European country in between France and Spain, known as Genovia. Alas, we have modern take on a princess story. Come on, is that all you can come up for young girls, Fame, The Perfect Body Image and Princess fiction?  A coming of age story with a twist of modern princesses and romance, Princess Mia must choose a lifestyle as the invisible high school girl or the future Princess of Genovia?

      Another story that was intended for a young adult audience, The Princess Diaries became a very popular series that tween girls fell in love with. Speaking as one of those girls, this is yet another story that promotes fame in a slightly different way, royalty and what that means in modern times. Let’s not focus on diplomatic or political concerns that royalty must take on, the story focuses on Mia essentially being at an in between stage of her life who has frizzy hair and comes off as a dork and often invisible to the people around her. Once she finds out she is the daughter of a prince, she instantly becomes the most popular girl at school and everyone wants to be her friend, even the popular boys and girls Mia secretly hates. Mia gets a taste of what’s it is like to be a part of the cool crowd and realizes what true friendship is and that she might not be cut out to take on such important responsibilities as a princess.    

L.A. Candy

L.A. Candy by Lauren Conrad

Yet another celebrity who thinks just because she’s a celebrity she can dabble in whatever she wants and can still become a New York Times bestselling author. Lauren Conrad, a Laguna Beach teenager that changed reality television by not only promoting fame but the rise of teenage television stardom. Lauren Conrad became famous by co-starring in the hit television ‘reality show’ when she was eighteen years old. Lucky for her she became a millionaire, had another hit show, became a fashion designer, a bestselling author and screams self promotion. No offense to LC because I actually am a fan of hers, (I grew up looking up to her) she represents this idea that fame is how we become successful. Hello your audience is reaching middle school girls, this is not the right message to be sending tweens. Her image encourages the idea that fame is almost normal and easy to fall into. In her first book series, L.A. Candy she essentially tells the story of her real life and how making it in Los Angeles, a sea of fake people and friends who will stab you in the back no matter the cost of fame. Flat, predictable and characters who sport Chanel purses, this book sends the wrong message and is a recipe for disaster for young minds.

              Reading the first in the series, I really did not understand the point to this book (I had to force myself to read the other two books). It is essentially a novelization of her hit show on MTV, The Hills. It focuses on a young girl who becomes a reality show star and her life in Los Angeles, California. Although this type of fiction is certainly trendy and popular at the moment, parents may not be all that worried because they see it as only a trend, something that won’t be cool in a few years. However with a culture that is constantly being bombarded with Hollywood, constant celebrity gossip, rumors and the high life. Our society and culture is certainly being influenced by this role of celebrity lifestyle and fame playing a crucial part of who we are as the American youth.  Although the books focus on the life of fame for young girls, in real life I think Lauren is one of very few celebrities that try to stay away from the fame and drama. She has done an excellent way of trying to live a life on the ‘down low.’

Gossip Girl

Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar

The first novel in the Gossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar was intentionally meant for a young adult audience but became huge and popular amongst preteen girls in middle school. A series that focuses on teen drama, the first novel titled Gossip Girl, inspired a hit television show that hit an audience that ranged from middle school to college aged girls. The first book focuses on the lives of privileged teenagers at an elite prep school for girls on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. While the story focuses on a group of best friends, the story is from the perspective of an anonymous gossip blogger. The structure of the story revolves around friendship, revenge and exploiting each other’s love lives. Being a part of the popular group, they can’t help but indulge in visiting the “Gossip Girl” site, where an anonymous blogger spreads rumors and gossip about the elite group of girls.

        Released in early 2002, the Gossip Girl franchise took off when the hit and popular show was created in 2007 staring Blake Lively and Leighton Meester among other famous actors. While self promotion seems to play a big theme in the books and television show, this is another story that focuses on fame, egotism and being the prettiest girl in school. Not exactly books we encourage our young girls to read, we can’t help but wonder why this style of young adult (and ‘tween’) fiction is so popular. Do we want our youth to be influenced by rich kids parading around and sleeping with each other’s boyfriends, exploring with drugs and alcohol. It’s the question of innocence, do we want to preserve the idea of ‘child innocence’ or is it time for them to learn about the reality of our culture and society? Is fame really that imperative to being successful in life? Is it healthy for our kids to fill their mind with the idea of fame, sex and self promotion?

Themed Reader’s Advisory Tweens: How Fame became the Norm (The Obsession with Fame in Everyday Life

  Hannah Montana: Keeping Secrets

      Hannah Montana originally aired on the Disney Channel and became an instant favorite among tween aged girls with her hit television show, films, concerts and books. What started out as a show turned into a brand that sold dolls, books, music and much, much more. The show focuses on an average American school girl played by Miley Cyrus who is secretly this mega pop star who trying to deal with real life as Miley Stewart. Once the series turned into a popular book series, girls couldn’t get their hands on the books fast enough. In Hannah Montana: Keeping Secrets, Miley doesn’t know what to do when faced with the dilemma of her best friend Oliver is completely obsessed with Hannah Montana. Miley has to figure out a way to keep her life safe and secret from everyone including her friends.

      Hannah Montana is the perfect example to start with when talking about tween’s and the lives of children and the influence of fame. Growing up watching television shows in the nineties, we knew the distinction between what was real and not. We knew how to separate our lives from what was happening on the television screen. In today’s society, fame and self promotion is very much a part of our world and our day to day lives now with the internet and constant access to information. With more shows focusing on Hollywood Access and fame, I think it’s interesting to examine how fame is very much a part of this younger generation and how they shape their moral identity. Hannah’s influence in her show has undoubtedly played an important part on how young minds view and think of fame in our culture. It’s in our news, in shows and in our books. What message is this sending to our kids today? Is Hannah Montana harmless to our kids?

How Facebook Makes Us Unhappy

An interesting article written based on study conducted in Michgan, Ethan Kross a psychologist from the University of Michigan makes a statement that Facebook and other social media sites actually makes users feel lonely and unhappy. In a case where he observed eighty plus people in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he concludes that sites like Facebook can in fact make us more depressed feeling and lonely because we innately compare our lives to other people, their accomplishments and their achievements, we can’t help but become addicted to checking out what other people are doing and then feeling bad because our lives just don’t compare.

      Again, parents of young children and even older children, it’s very important to limit, discipline and control the computer time at home. Spending so much time on social media sites isn’t good for our kids minds. As a society we’re already in fragile and vulnerable states of mind. Letting sites and technology play off our sadness and loneliness from what’s happening in the real world, is not healthy for anyone. Take a closer look at your family and home life and enjoy the company of each other instead of resorting to looking down at screen when you’re missing the life that’s happening right in front of you. 

(image via google, article via new yorker)

Alone in the Crowd

The writer says it all in just a few words, ‘our ability to be elsewhere at any point in time.’ You could spend hours, days, weeks reading and researching the consequences and effects technology has had in our culture but this being ‘elsewhere’ is all we really need to focus on. In a culture and society that tries to emphasize the importance of being here and in the now, this is simply not the case. With technology and being busy twenty four/seven, we live in a very face paced world that doesn’t allow for stillness, tranquility or enjoying the presence of other people. Alone in the crowd discusses and explains that we as Americans in particular not only need to learn to disconnect but truly learn to be here and live in the moment. Elswhere, we’re in a constant state of this place, even we’re sitting at home on the couch watching television with the family, guaranteed someone is on their phone, playing a game, looking a magazine and do something other than enjoying the time with their family in that exact moment.

      This is significant and imperative to teach children in our culture today. Children are forever in the elsewhere, they have ADD and other anxiety related problems because we are not focusing our attention on teaching them the importance of being in the moment. We teach them it’s important to busy, multitask and constantly be on the move. Parents, we must change this way of thinking, teaching them to complete a task one at a time and being in the present moment is the most important thing to teach our kids. It’s our responsibility to not let them become victims of technology and living between ten different apps, games and sites on their tablets.

(image via google, article via apa)