"Not All Men Are Sly Foxes" by Armin A. Brott

Brott's argument claims that children are highly influenced by what teacher's and parent's read to them but I must disagree. Sure, books are going to spark children's imagination (ex: reading a book with monsters may cause a child to look under his bed every night) but so do movies and television. As far as influencing the way a child thinks and their views on life I don't believe books play as significant of a role in mind development as Brott makes them out to do. When children are read to or read books, especially young children, they aren't analyzing and going beyond the text because their minds aren't as complex as an adult's. Children mainly remember pictures or the climax of a book because that's what interests them... not the lack of a father role in fairy tales.

One of my favorite books as a child was Alice in Wonderland. What stood out for me was all of the different characters in the book and how the world she was in was described and changed throughout the story. I paid no attention to the fact that many of the characters sort of symbolize drugs (ex: the catapillar smoking the pipe and seeming nice and calm at first then explodes as would someone who is smoking crack cocaine) or that the mother was the one teaching Alice (a lack of a father I suppose). I did not even notice the lack of a father until I read this article and I don't think anyone notices until someone points it out. I think that Brott is making a silly argument just to argue. Children's books aren't always politically correct because they don't need to be, THEY'RE FAIRY TALES.