There's days I can't help but side-eye children's books
really hard.
Case in point, Prince Albert's Birthday, a book about prince albert getting a beaver instead of a hat for his birthday (and ends with the royal butler probably going to look for prostitutes at a bowling alley).
The thing is, I'm not sure how
intentional it is? But that, inadvertent or not, is
wall to wall innuendo. "Prince Albert" is slang for, in the words of the departed Robin Williams, "A bolt through the cock" -- it's a style of genital piercing. Beaver's, well, obvious. Didn't actually sit down and read it when I got it in our system 'cause we're being pretty hellishly overworked at the moment and shit's even busier than usual for an understaffed cataloging department, but I did skim through a bit and, like. If it
wasn't intentional I'd be pretty damn surprised because there bits I glanced at that were pretty obviously leaning into it.
And I've definitely noticed similar things, not exactly
often but often enough to make it pretty damn likely some authors of children's books are pretty intentionally writing like that. I think I've even mentioned
The Amazing Bone before, which on top of being a caldecott honor book is just absolutely skeevy as
hell if you let yourself read basically anything into it. The tonal dissonance between a cute book about a fox after a literal bone and one about an aggressive sex pest/rapist stalking a victim is
fierce.
S'just. On some level, I do appreciate it? But on the other level, like. Maybe the weird sex shit isn't ideal for writing in between the lines for stuff written for like four year olds, I'unno. It makes for conflicted feelings encountering it sometimes, ha, and from personal remembrance kids can start noticing that crap a lot earlier than folks seem to expect. Not saying don't write it, exactly, but... maybe like, at least don't
market it for the chillun if you're going to be layering in very much adult junk, too? Something? It might make the joke more obvious but it'd also mean I get distracted wondering if I'm actually putting the thing in the right section of the library less often, heh.