Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsDecent Book Weight Commentary Unhelpful & Unnecessary
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 27, 2017
We've had this book for about 10 months now, and our son is just getting to the point where he will let me read it to him. Because of some of his unique needs, he struggles with accepting new books into his life.
I like that the sentences are simple, and I like that vaccines are included in this book. It is a great book for a kiddo with a short attention span.
I did, however, take issue with the part about Corduroy eating too many cookies, and having put on too many pounds. You know, I get that obesity is an increasing problem, but sometimes medical providers over-react when they don't need to. I was blessed to be able to carry one of my pregnancies to term, but a lot went wrong towards the end and for a couple months after, and I ended up needing to switch to formula because of a series of medical complications. When that happened, our baby girl, now a very healthy weighted 10 year old, gained a pound pretty quickly, because formula fed babies tend to put on weight quicker, And I got this lecture from her pediatrician about making sure I didn't over feed her that had me seeing red I was so upset. Because of my schooling and background I understand the importance of healthful eating and living as much as anybody, but I don't see the need of putting that in a book.
And I also kind of felt like the part about Corduroy getting a balloon at the end was setting kiddos up for overly high expectations of the end of the Dr's visit reward. Totally, I've never heard of or personally experienced a practice where that is what happens.
So overall, I thought this was a good book, I just think the weight comments and the balloon needed to be left out.
Edit:
I realized this morning as I was working out I needed to be more specific about my objection on the weight comment. Context matters when it comes to weight issues. In the example I gave with my daughter, formula metabolizes different from breast milk, and from my perspective, it is well documented that a baby switched for formula will probably gain some weight, especially on the onset, and that it was both foreseeable and didn't indicate anything that needed to be an immediate concern, and certainly didn't require the kind of lecture I got. But if I hadn't had the background I did, as a parent, I would have left that office feeling like I was screwing up and doing a crappy job, rather then trying to calm myself down from the grapes of wrath I'd started mentally chewing on.
Weight matters are complicated, things like frame size, is a child getting ready to have a growth spurt, is there a medical condition or medication causing the weight gain...these are things that matter when you have any sort of discussion about pediatric weight. I felt like it is a more complicated issue than can be appropriately addressed in a childrens book, and that to just lump it in with the bear or a child eating too much...well, maybe that's the case, maybe it's not, but if your kiddo reads this book over and over again, without you helping them put it into context they may assume any problem they have is because they are doing something bad. And that may not be the case at all. And in general, I think obsessing about weight isn't nearly as important or useful for long term outcomes as focusing on health, and what a body can do to support that. Which is why I took a star off.
