Rant and Rave

Hop on over to Melissa Wiley's blog and you'll find out that the publisher of her Little House Martha and Charlotte books are going to be republished in abridged versions. And then read this great post at Dewey's Treehouse.
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As if that is not bad enough, the publishers are planning on republishing Laura Ingalls Wilder's books with photo covers minus the illustrations by Garth Williams. I visited amazon in order to place my order for the rest of the old series in hardcovers so my collection will be complete. I can't have my future grandchildren reading Little House from the new books with the devoid-of-talent covers and NO illustrations. I only wish I had enough money to order seven sets, one for each of my children. Better yet, I'd like to buy out the publishing company and stop them from such nonsense.
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Here is the comparison. This one has a lovely cover, one that you can look at and appreciate the talent that went into it's creation. Maybe I'm partial since I have a house full of artists and a children's book illustrator. I can see this cover inspiring budding artists to try their own hand at a scene like this. But please, Little House without Garth Williams or at least some talented illustrator? What is the world coming to?

When I saw this new cover, I wanted to throw my shoe at it. It's sad to think that the Little House books need to be made over in order to appeal to modern children. It's sad to think they might prefer Goosebumps or The Babysitters Club.

Isn't there some rule that you can't be grown up without reading these? Well, probably not. We are too busy making really stupid laws like the ones Granny talks about here and here. Maybe if we would not rob our children of good traditions and the love of beauty and dumb them down at the same time, they would grow up to actually care about their children's education and not have to be forced to go through the motions of looking like they care or face being prosecuted by the law. Maybe they would really want to have a hand in the raising of their own children. Maybe they would actually READ them good books and show them beautiful pictures and have them listen to beautiful music. And maybe spending that time building those relationships and teaching them about the Beauty that their Maker intended them to experience would prevent them from settling for trash and needing mandatory vaccinations against sexually transmitted diseases.