Blog
The Suzuki Foundation vs Children’s Minds

Global Warming is melting Santa’s Home. Where will he live?? Indoctrinating children is nothing new for David Suzuki and his foundation. When a child’s capacity to reason is undercut by indoctrination, he becomes a marionette merely responding as someone else pulls his strings. Read More
The Principle Anti-Bullying Activists Don’t Get.

Little could do more to increase the harm to victims of verbal bullying than does the recent public service announcement, “Words Hurt”. . . . Imagine if the bullied girl in the video knew that the bully words were nonsense? The ‘flying words’ would never touch her and she would not be hurt. Walking away would be easy. Imagine how empowering that would be!
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Improper English in children’s books.

You have found a popular book for children, but notice the narration deliberately uses mangled English. Is it a harmless quirk used to reach kids at their own ‘level’, or something more cynical? Read More
Teaching Independence —without teaching.

She could choose, entirely on her own, what she was going to do next. There was a side benefit: I could get other things done, nearby, and could reduce my time at baby play, which I found unbearably boring! Read More
Children’s Literature: enduring creation or ca$h caprice?

The children’s book industry is more like journalism:
“. . . journalism and scholarship seem completely unlike: journalism so bustling, feverish, [quite] content with daily oblivion; the academic world so sheltered, deliberate and hopeful of enduring products.” Allan Nevins Read More
Children’s Literature: A Woozy Zoo

Imagine publishers & authors explaining excellence in children’s literature:
“The only parallel I can think of is having the zoo come to you, one animal at a time; and I expect that what you hear one week from the giraffe is contradicted next week by the baboon.” — Flannery O’Connor Read More
Baby Sense

I had seen something more wonderful than seeing her first steps. I had seen her think.
At only 7 months of age, she tested to see if a decorative margin was part of our carpet, or not. (The pic is of her, 3 yrs later) Read More
ValuedMinds – this blog

The ValuedMinds blog will address ideas on, — topics raised by popular children’s books, — issues faced by parents and their children, — the children’s literature industry (for casual observers) . . . and burning issues raised in the comments. See Introduction – How Use This Site for a visitor’s overview of the ValuedMinds site structure and use.