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A review by rhodered
Big Nate: Great Minds Think Alike by Lincoln Peirce
Did not finish book.
Read through this with dawning horror as I sat in a waiting room. Scholastic editors, you should be ashamed of yourselves. This comic book for children includes heavy doses of:
1. Fat shaming: the hero pranks a teacher by changing her ringtone to a song entitled "I'm fat". Later he publicly nicknames another teacher "Fat Elvis"
2. Bullying: the hero says it's no fun using a fat shaming nickname if the victim can't overhear him doing it. He himself is repetitively bullied by his gang for enjoying a comic strip about a teenage girl. This bullying is presented as funny and cute.
3. Sexuality: the hero is just barely in 6th grade. So, 11-12 years old. He is portrayed as being raging with heretosexual hormones. He can't stop thinking about breasts and legs. He frequently tries to get girls' attention with cheesy pick up lines.
4. Objectification of women: He buys and fetishizes a comic book starring a tall, scantily clad adult female vampire. It is made explicitly clear that he adores this character for nothing else than her body. Plus, his father and the comic book retailer agree with him.
He also sees the girls in his school as interchangeable. Aside from an older sister and adult women (teachers, neighbors) he has no real contact with girls. He has no female friends. He appears to think girls are interchangeable - at Valentine's Day he sends every unattached girl in his class a card saying they are his "one and only" - because I guess lying is a great way to start things?
5. Small mindedness: he is disgusted when his older sister refers to figure skating as a sport. This is a big joke we are meant to agree with.
On the plus side? Well, several of the teachers are male, including the art teacher (yay, not just science.)
...and that's all the good I've got for you.
Scholastic, poisoning young minds one fat joke at a time.
1. Fat shaming: the hero pranks a teacher by changing her ringtone to a song entitled "I'm fat". Later he publicly nicknames another teacher "Fat Elvis"
2. Bullying: the hero says it's no fun using a fat shaming nickname if the victim can't overhear him doing it. He himself is repetitively bullied by his gang for enjoying a comic strip about a teenage girl. This bullying is presented as funny and cute.
3. Sexuality: the hero is just barely in 6th grade. So, 11-12 years old. He is portrayed as being raging with heretosexual hormones. He can't stop thinking about breasts and legs. He frequently tries to get girls' attention with cheesy pick up lines.
4. Objectification of women: He buys and fetishizes a comic book starring a tall, scantily clad adult female vampire. It is made explicitly clear that he adores this character for nothing else than her body. Plus, his father and the comic book retailer agree with him.
He also sees the girls in his school as interchangeable. Aside from an older sister and adult women (teachers, neighbors) he has no real contact with girls. He has no female friends. He appears to think girls are interchangeable - at Valentine's Day he sends every unattached girl in his class a card saying they are his "one and only" - because I guess lying is a great way to start things?
5. Small mindedness: he is disgusted when his older sister refers to figure skating as a sport. This is a big joke we are meant to agree with.
On the plus side? Well, several of the teachers are male, including the art teacher (yay, not just science.)
...and that's all the good I've got for you.
Scholastic, poisoning young minds one fat joke at a time.