meh

In an octopus's garden, with you.

I'm not really sure what to say. It feels like it's aimed at a very specific audience, namely children who have just had a younger sibling born who has Down syndrome, which is a very small audience. I guess you could give it to a child if you were trying to explain what Down syndrome was. But basically the only thing says is what Down syndrome isn't. It doesn't say what it is.

Message

People with Down syndrome can do everything that anybody else can do.

Pony ex machina.

There was no reason for him to believe that the pony would help him. So he was just basically playing with a toy that he made himself and then the toy became real, Velveteen-Rabbit-style. Unless there's some kind of tradition of making ponies out of mud and treating them as if they're real, and it does not imply that there is.

Message

Treat inanimate objects with respect and the forces of nature will give you magical powers.

Oh my god, a typewriter! I've never seen one of those before! This is the best day of my life!

The message is clearly about the power of imagination. I don't know how a story this inventive and fantastical and unique is executed with this much cliche. It just ends up being so trite. It's pretty. It's nice to look at. But that's strictly because the guy's a good artist.

Message

Imagination is powerful.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course, except if it used to be an Indian girl.

It falls kind of in the low end of "meh." I'd kind of be annoyed if people were reading this to my kids, but I wouldn't stop them. I don't think that children actually get the idea that they should run away and live with horses.

Message

Respect animals?

I wanna rock and, erm, rock, all night.

I think it's obvious that school buses don't randomly start spinning. Nobody needs to state that. It's the more bizarre things, the things that the kids are doing that are clearly dangerous, rather than the weird and frivolous happenings that they need to be drawing attention to.

Message

Kids need to learn about rocks and the layers of the earth.

Take my wife. Out to the ball game.

It's not even by Carly Simon. She's just the one singing it on the included CD. This is weird. It's written by Jack Norworth and illustrated by somebody else. I don't even know why she's involved with this.

Message

Baseball is awesome.

Kind of like a less cruel version of "The Cat Came Back."

I probably wouldn't read this to kids based on the amount of terrible things that happen to this poor animal, but I wouldn't be that upset if somebody read this to my children. Bad things happen in the world.

Message

Cats have very dangerous lives.

Oh, go fly a... rabbit?

I can only think of the "Cat Copter," the taxidermied pet cat that somebody made into a drone. But I don't think the person who did that thought that it would be fun for the cat. The cat's dead. The cat doesn't care anymore. Why? Why would you do this, other than out of a bizarre sense of amusement?

Message

Be nice to dead animals. Or, dogs are stupid.

Is this a specific kind of cuisine I'm unfamiliar with?

The story is okay, it's just the writing that's poor. It's a picture book, intended for adults to read to children. A parent is going to be there. You don't need to have your characters do something, and then explain why they did the right thing. You're not adding anything new just by repeating what just happened with a cliche description. That's not the same thing as explaining things in a different way.

Message

Being different is good. Or, be nice to everybody even if they're a jerk to you.

Not to be confused with "Tigers Gone Wild."

It's a weird book. It's got a message but I'm not sure it effectively communicates that message. I guess Mr. Tiger's benevolent rampage convinces everybody else that they should be a little less stuck-up?

Message

It's important to go crazy every once in a while.