Fuse 8 n’ Kate: The Wretched Stone by Chris Van Allsburg
While doing another Chris Van Allsburg picture book may seem like a relative no-brainer around the Halloween season, maybe there’s a reason we hadn’t done this particular title before. Unlike The Stranger, The Widow’s Broom (which I mistakenly call “The Witch’s Broom” on the podcast), or even The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, this particular title feels less like a tribute to the uncanny and more like a failed 1991 diatribe against television. The monkey sailors have NOT aged well, and it just sort of feels like a lesser Van Allsburg. But let’s dive into the ins and outs of this potentially creepy title.
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Show Notes:
We’re including this solely to alert the @pipesinkidlit Instagram account.
This is a legitimately creepy image. Naturally in 2024 you cannot have apes or monkeys wearing men’s clothing in a children’s picture book, but back in the 90s few objected.
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What baffles us particularly about this lesson (TV = bad) is that for 1991 that’s a pretty old message. Thirty years earlier you know who tackled the same thing in a book? Pogo! (And well worth finding if you can locate it)
Kate Recommends: Will and Harper
Betsy Recommends: Evanston’s first community powwow.
Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate
About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.
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Although I was in high school when this book came out, I felt about it the way I did about THE GIVING TREE: that my mom was being annoying by obviously trying to teach us lesson when she brought it home. Cue my teenage eye roll. I do remember telling her that none of us acted *that* stupid after watching TV but, then again, our viewing was limited by my parents. However, in this day and age, with people in front of way more screens that really do have them exhibiting Van Allsburg’s monkey-like behavior, this book feels newly appropriate or even prescient. But I think my kids would still eye-roll me if I gave it to them to read.