Perfect for when you need a book to help explain to your children the terrifying effects of nuclear fallout, malignant tumors, leukemia, chemotherapy, diplomatic ties between Cuba and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Ukrainian mullets, the cruelty of the American embargo, and the benevolence of aging communist dictators.

To see more pages from this book, click here.

I've really backed myself into a corner with these Terrifying Nixon-era Children's Books, given all my phony captions and snarky commentary. Occasionally now I'll come across a book produced during this era and parts of it will be so strange I'm sure you'll think I made it up, and John Holland's The Way It Is (Fifteen boys describe life in their neglected urban neighborhood) is just such a book. On its surface, the book isn't all that different from any of the recent "kids with cameras" experiments or even the idea I'm trying to execute by giving cameras to a bunch of kids on the east side of Detroit. Back in the mid-1960s, a Brooklyn high school teacher gave his students cameras through a grant from Eastman Kodak and they went about photographing their lives in a Williamsburg neighborhood that today only exists in the distant memories of the Puerto Ricans who once lived there. The photographs show street life in a Williamsburg neighborhood just as Johnson's Great Society was taking effect and urban renewal housing projects were replacing the historic slums. The text in the book is supposed to be from the students' perspective, explaining what they captured on film.

I'm sharing this book with you not just because some parts of it are unintentionally funny today (even though they are), but because it remains such a quaint little piece of evidence of how strange the world of children's publishing was in 1969. All of these books show how new psychological and social attitudes filtered down to the media that was being created for kids, where showing them "the truth" (usually through black-and-white documentary photography) was far more important than telling a good story. These books are all earnest and heartfelt and almost universally dull (which I why I have so often made up the captions).

The world this book portrays is as terrifying on the page as it probably was in real life. Junkies attack school kids and push them off rooftops to die after the ambulance doesn't come in time. Feral dogs roam the neighborhood. The streets are filled with bums and drunks. But despite this subject matter, it was clearly intended for a very young audience. Inside my copy I found a stamp from the library of a suburban Detroit elementary school. Who was the book's intended audience? Surely other slum kids didn't need a book like this to show them what was wrong in their neighborhoods. I can only assume the book was intended to show sheltered middle-American kids how terrible life was in the ghetto, perhaps with the intent of spurring them to some sort of activism. Some of the contemporary reactions to the books are telling. Senator Jacob Javits of New York said, "This book will do both---inspire better-positioned boys and girls of all ages to serve and help in the slums and ghettoes---and testify to how unbelievably bad it is but how much can be done!"; Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine said, "If children can get to know each other through this kind of communication, their generation stands an excellent chance of avoiding the fear, mistrust, and lack of understanding that has afflicted our own."

There were similar books published in this era that I also really like (Herb Goro's The Block; Clifford McElroy's house with 100 lights) but what makes this one so strange is its intended audience of very young children. I'm going to ignore a large chunk of the book that shows kids skipping class and drinking and sniffing glue in public parks or tenement rooftops, sharing instead a few pages that focus on some of the neighborhood characters the kids encounter, like good old Buck Teeth Joe Junior:

Or good old Uncle Tio. He really likes to play with kids:

[This post has a lot more pictures from the book, so I'm going to break it up. If you'd like to see the rest of the post, click here]

This one was discovered during my days scrapping abandoned Detroit public school libraries before the snow ruined everything. It's so silly and deeply earnest I just had to make fun of it. Text is my own. The book is available on amazon if seeing the original text is that important to you.

This is Reginald Blaine Van Hoof III. His family has lived in their lovely brownstone on the Upper Upper West Side for many generations. His father is a hardworking investment banker with Goldman Sachs. One time Reginald took the 3 train to try to see his father, but he wasn't at the office. Reginald's mother gave him a stern look when he returned. "Someday you'll see your father," she promised.

One day, a monkey came through his window and handed him a large lollipop. "Reginald," he said. "Your father has sent me bearing this magical gift. He wishes he could spend more time with you, but he's busy earning the money to pay your Princeton tuition and Ivy Club dues so that one day you too may be paid millions to manipulate the markets with a mere modicum of intelligence. That's how all this works. Oh, and he also bangs a lot of hookers (don't tell your mom)." 

"Wow," said Reginald. "A Magic Lollipop! I wonder what it can do!"

[click here to see the rest of the book] 

This latest book to rise to the top of the thrift store discovery pile is a heartwarming little self-published (but underwritten by an insurance trade group?) tale of a boy who discovers that his father's career selling insurance is much more exciting than he previously thought. In the original version, the father is there to save the day wherever tragedy strikes, sort of a superhero in Stafford slacks. In my parody version, he's more like a bloodthirsty pirate in Stafford slacks. The truth about the insurance industry (I learned after years of litigating bad faith insurance case) probably lies somewhere in between.

Note: this is parody of the original text using the original illustrations. 

Click here to see the whole book. 

This is the book I read my kid when she won't brush her teeth. 

Click Here to Keep Reading

This week's selection is the story of a girl and her doll, told in the earnest black and white photography that was a hallmark of the most terrifying examples of Nixon-era children's literature. I believe this book was published as part of a campaign by the Porcelain Doll Manufacturers Association to combat the prevailing belief that there is nothing more terrifying than a China Doll staring at you from across the room.

After their weekly visit to the zoetrope, Amy stuck her nose on the glass at C. N. Mackie's Magical Toy Depot while her mother inspected the crinoline cage she'd had repaired next door at Douglas and Sherwood's House of Hoops. "I simply must have a talking doll, Mother," Amy insisted.

"I'm truly sorry, Ma'am," the Victorian shopkeeper said. "But they won't make talking dolls for at least another fifty years or so."

"If my daughter desires a talking doll," Amy's mother said, "Then you will sell us a talking doll."

"Let me go in the back and see what I can find."

"Well Miss, they say this one talks, but from the looks of things her last guv'ness didn't like what she had to say."

"I don't care," Amy snorted. "Repair her at once."

"Yes, Miss."
"My name is Talky Tina, and I love you very much," the doll said. Children are meant to be seen and not heard, Amy grinned, lightly spanking its bottom as she walked away.

"This doll is indecent," Amy's mother said to the shopkeeper. "Dress her respectfully, something with leg of mutton sleeves, perhaps. And a cashmere shawl."

"Yes, ma'am."
"My name is Talky Tina," the doll said. "Will you play with me?"

"I'll play with you, alright," Amy whispered deviously as she left the store.

"My name is Talky Tina, and this is making me really uncomfortable, Amy."

When she tired of the game herself, Amy let the neighbor boy lift up Talky Tina's petticoats in exchange for half a pack of Beeman's chewing gum

"My name is Talky Tina. Please don't bury me under the rock cairn again."

"My name is Talky Tina and I'm afraid of heights. Please don't stick me in that tree with Silent Sam."

"My name is Talky Tina and I don't like this one bit!"

Amy just laughed.

"My name is Talky Tina, will you be my friends?"

"Silence!" Amy shouted at Tina. "Can't you see the adults are having a conversation?"

"My name is Talky Tina and I don't like figgy pudding."

"Well, you'll eat it even if I have to tie you to your bed and force it down your throat!"

In time, Amy stopped playing with her talking doll. "My name is Talky Tina, and I am lonely," she said.

Whenever she tried to speak, Amy throttled her good.

"My name is Talky Tina, and I love you," Talky Tina said to Amy on the swing.

"You're boring!" Amy shouted, and threw her in the bushes.

Talky Tina wept while Amy's former cat Mr. Fritz consoled her. "She used to put laxative powder in my tuna fish," he said while peeking his head under her petticoats.

"My name is Talky Tina and I will survive on the streets by selling matchsticks and picking the occasional pocket until I get my revenge."

One day, Talky Tina returned to Amy's house [cue creepy music box]. Now things were different. During her absence, Amy had begun treating Little Lulu the same way she had treated Talky Tina.

"My name is Talky Tina, and I am going to hurt you."

"That's right, Amy. Step right over to the edge, and just lean forward, just a little. . ."

This week's selection comes from the career shelf in our library of photo-illustrated Nixon-era children's books (published 1971). As always, some of the captions are real. Some are made up. There are a lot of pictures so I've made the post expandable. Click here to read the full post.

Charles Lawrence is a Chicago police officer. There are 13,000 policemen in the city and 500,000 policemen in the United States. The main job of a policeman is to enforce the laws of his city and state. Charles is going to show us what it's like to be a policeman.

Policeman school is a lot like regular school, except that at Policeman school you get to shoot guns all the time. Charles says shooting guns is as much fun as he always thought it would be. “It makes me feel powerful,” he says.

Charles learns to wield his night stick in formation. "Hippies show no mercy," his instructor barks. "So neither can you."

Man, Charles thinks, I hope the Tear Gas final examination is multiple choice.

Charles inspects some recently-confiscated weed. "Now that's some good shit," Charles notes.

Charles passed all his tests. He's a real cop now. "I can't wait to start waling on some hippies," he says.

Click here to see Charles in action.

This one doesn't even need commentary. In my opinion, I Wish Daddy Didn't Drink So Much is the magnum opus of Judith Vigna, the Joyce Carol Oates of deeply-traumatized child/ dysfunctional-family literature, and the author of (I'm not shitting you): My Big Sister Takes Drugs, My Two Uncles, Mommy and Me By Ourselves Again, She's Not My Real Mother, and Nobody Wants a Nuclear War. I Wish Daddy Didn't Drink So Much is the heartwarming tale of a young girl given a sled by a VERY merry Santa, and how her daddy won't enjoy it with her until he can get to the store to pick up another 12-pack of Steel Reserve. He has to walk, though, because mommy hid his car keys.

I get that books like these are written to supposedly ease the pain of kids already going through this kind of nightmare ("You're not alone!"). But do these kids really want to read books about some other kid's surly drunk father? Wouldn't it be better if those kids just read books about happy unicorns carrying princesses away from evil trolls on their way to gumdrop castles? What's next, Judith Vigna, I Wish Daddy Would Stop Visiting Me at Night or Who Are All these Men Sleeping With Mommy?