Skippyjon Jones - Appalled. Am I alone?

[insahmniak]

Can someone tell me why Skippyjon Jones won awards? (EB White, Booksense 76)

Do I need a kids book appreciation course? The Siamese kitty cat soooo wants to be a chihuahua, drives mama kitty nuts. Cliche condescending parent/child roles, but okay. I can swallow this so far. Then, obsessed kitty draws chihuahuas all over the walls and gets sent to his room for a time out (gawd where's the GD parenting book list?).

The rest of the book is littered with Spanglish. Well, not even that. Words like, oh, I don't know, rhyming chimichango with tango, or tagging "ita" or "o" on the ends of random words, most of it broken english. Of course I'm looking at the author's credentials at the end, hoping I'm missing something and she's a latino author writing from a perspective that's new to me. Nothing of the sort listed, but who knows, right? Just lotsa awards.

What am I missing? Why aren't the Siamese cats speaking broken english with Thai accents and eating lemongrass? Since when does Blackface garner awards? This book certainly gets a Blinded Whiteness Award for cultural condescension. Blah. Yuck. Phewy.

[jempd]

My son loves this book and brought it home on loan from his very cutting-edge methodology preschool. I didn't love the way the mother cat treated skippyjon (nor that, like Peter Rabbit, it is the boy who is the protagonist and has all the fun and adventure while the sisters all behave perfectly) but I also I thought the language was really fun and inventive. I was in the next room when I overheard dh reading it to ds who was giggling and giggling and they were having so much fun with the silly words--like bumblebeeto--that I smiled too. When I don't like something in a book I read to my son I weigh it against its positive aspects as I don't think the behavior of any character is that much of a detraction unless that's ALL he reads, or I confirm that that's completely the norm and acceptable. I might comment on what my point of view of it is, that's all. I took it as coming from the kid's perspective--Mom is SO unreasonable and demanding--and exagerated for the narrative's sake. (And besides, doesn't she hug him and say something loving in the end? I think so.) And I don't hold Siamese cats to a standard of being culturally accurate. It didn't occur to me that they should be eating Thai food as, after all, they also were wearing clothes and lived in a little house, etc. I allowed for artistic license, if you know what I mean. In my opinion, the strength of this book and probably why it did so well critically is it's playful and inventive use of language and also its celebration of the skippyjon character's imaginative play. Just letting you know how it struck me.

[mommyoftwo]

We absolutely love it.

I always catch myself calling my son Mr. Kitten Britches or Cocopugs.

I guess that the time out part is a bit harsh but the mom is really sweet and understanding at the end of the book.

I didn't see the language as an issue at all. I see the whole story as a celebration of his wonderful imagination.

[griffin2004]

My DD and I love that book, too. The wordplay is so creative and is delightful to the ear. Maybe I'm dense, but I don't get your cultural condescension claim at all. There was an article in Latina magazine a few months back about how common Spanglish is even amongst predominantly Spanish-speaking Americans.

I don't think I'm Blinded White (my dd is Latina, fwiw), but to each his or her own, I suppose.

[journeymom]

Originally Posted by ohmtaretu

Why aren't the Siamese cats speaking broken english with Thai accents and eating lemongrass?

Actually, that's kinda funny.

6 y.o. ds brought Skippy Jon home from school and loved it. He laughed so hard at the silly words and the rhymes. I don't think he even thought twice about Skippy being sent to his room.

I admit, I thought exactly what you described, and I went looking for the author's cultural credentials.

I suppose you could compare it to Bill Cosby's Fat Albert talk, "Hey bu Fa bu Albert!" Some people think it's funny, some people think it's offensive.

So I guess I don't know what to think. I see your point. I also see that my son simply thought the rhymes and silly words were very funny.

[insahmniak]

I'm sorry to have taken so long to reply. I do appreciate your feedback.

I was curious about the term/use of Spanglish, so I looked up the Wikipedia entry for Spanglish.

Here's an example conversation that appears in the entry:

A short Spanglish conversation:

* Anita: "Hola, good morning, cómo estás?"
* Mark: "Good, y tú?"
* Anita: "Todo bien. Pero tuve problemas parqueando mi carro this morning."
* Mark: "Sí, I know. Siempre hay problemas parqueando in el area at this time".

I looked for things that would appear in the book, namely native English speakers using phrases like Good Morn-ingo. In other words, English folks trying to "speak" Spanish by adding things like -o or -ito onto English words. This isn't technically Spanglish, as far as I can tell from this little bit I've explored. It would seem that even linguists have issues with the term Spanglish. It was an interesting entry. I think I have a better understanding of Spanglish, now. It seems to me that Spanglish is about native Spanish speakers peppering their language with English phrases, or English-sounding words, like "parqueando."

What we see in Skippyjon is the English equivalent, where native English speakers are peppering their language with Spanish words or Spanish sounding words --- but not quite. And my objection, I think, is in the "not quite" part. It's not about native English speakers learning or adopting words from the Spanish language. Other than grossly well-known words like restaurant words (chimichanga), they are basically English words, with an ethnic "flair." So, not quite Spanglish, but Lazy-English-Speaking-Person's Spanish. Do you see my point of view here?

And it's a reflection (and perpetuation), in my opinion, of English as the language of the more dominant culture.

I have no problem whatsoever with Spanglish. Really. My mother is not a native speaker of English. When I'm with her and speaking with her, my speech patterns begin to mimic hers, and I speak more broken English. My partner finds this mildly amusing. I think it's amazing that I don't really notice it. I really have no problems with non-native speakers of English speaking broken English. What I take issue with is native speakers of English speaking broken English to sound non-native. I find it condescending and mocking. Learning to communicate in a non-native language can be very difficult, and mimicing people's accents and mistakes to sound non-native is very disrespectful. "A guy walks into a Chinese restaurant...." Can you hear it coming?

Okay, so "Skippyjon Jones" is fun to say. My daughter now says it a lot and I have fun saying it with her. We didn't read it enough to pick up any other phrases. And I'm glad of that. The rationale that because something sounds fun or makes us giggle or laugh or is imaginative word play is, in my opinion, not enough reason to condone it. It's creative wordplay and fun to say something like, "Chinese, Japanese, Dirty Knees, Lookat These" too. So do we write and read and give awards to books like that? I think this is a legitimate question. Call me uptight, but I really just believe we have options, and that out of respect we should use them. What would Skippyjon sound like if it was truely Spanglish, and not simply English speakers trying to sound ethnic?

Can we write fun books where kids aren't sent to their rooms or hit by their parents? Sure we can. Can we write fun, musical-sounding books with imaginative wordplay that are totally respectful? I think so. Can we imagine where cultures collide, ours NOT being the dominant culture?