Cecil in space Book

Beware: Overanalyzation of a children's book ahead.

I grew up on these books, they were some of the first that I ever read by myself. Now that we're looking to expand our little family, I thought it was about time to re-read these precious books, in preparation for bed-time stories.

The first three, at least, were not as adorable as I remember. Catundra in particular was actually a little startling.

Basically you have a very fat cat (proper term here is obese) who learns to love herself only after losing weight and becoming slim, fit, and beautiful.

Now, I'm not against the exercise moral. If one's weight is affecting their health then of course diet and exercise will help you find it again, and I'm sure it was very nice for Catundra to be able to walk again without nearly passing out, but I'm unsure how I feel about reading a story to my children where the ONLY solution for Catundra to be happy and for the other woodland animals to like her was to become pretty. "The other animals will stop laughing at you if you slim down." comes the sage advice from the little mole.

Basically what we're saying here is: "It's your fault you're fat, so it's your fault you're getting bullied. Stop being fat and you won't be bullied anymore."

I get the being healthy moral, but I think it was lost a little in the thinly veiled social disgust for heavy people. If the forest animal's parents had taught them to mind their manners and not bully others, they wouldn't have laughed at Catundra when she was just a "little" heavy, thus Catundra wouldn't have become so isolated and depressed that she ate to hide her feelings and became "a lot" heavy.

Really, the moral of this story should be "Don't be an asshole to other people."

I originally thought that I'd leave this one out of the bed-time story collection for my kids, but then I wrote this review and now I think it's a great way to introduce the concept of "how not to behave towards others."