Saturday, June 6, 2020

Just a Stage by Corey Majeau


Rating: WARTY!

This book was entirely inappropriate for young children - or anyone. it had an attitude that the environment is there for the pillaging and wasn't even remotely ashamed of it or apologetic about it.

The story in short is that there's no place like home. A house on stilts is the main character, living on a rock in Newfoundland. The house is described as a fisherman (note the gender-bias), but it's one which fishes indiscriminately, apparently having no use for the fish, but just pulling as many out of the water as possible. Never mind the fact that fisheries are collapsing worldwide because of over-fishing. Just pull them thar fish out as fast as you can.

As if this isn't bad enough, the house gets bored and, leaving its trash on the island, it moves to the pristine Canadian forest which is described not for its beauty but in terms of its natural resources to be exploited: trees, a stream, and plenty of animals. The house immediately starts clear-cutting the forest.

Next it moves to a desert, but presumably there's nothing to exploit there, no even oil, so it leaves. The next location is displeasing because, and without a hint of irony, the house finds it 'dirty'. Eventually, it harnesses a whale (no kidding) to swim back to its original location riding on its back, where it settles on the back of a poor turtle and starts fishing again. WTF? I'm sorry but this book is probably the worst children's book i ever read. It's completely anti-environmental and it sucks. Trump, in active process of rolling back no fewer than 100 environmental regulations, will probably buy this by the truckload for his grandchildren. Me? I actively dis-commend this toxic trash.