What more needs to be said?
He was so proud to sing it, right up to the big finish. He looks so much older with his hair short!
Behold the power of the Internet
Long time friend, sometime commenter, and fellow blogger InteractiveReader recently managed to bring the Scholastic publishing company to it’s knees (kind of)(okay not really, but still). Allow me to explain.
On Thursday, Jackie put up a blog post about a Scholastic series, “How to Survive Anything”. One of the books is subtitled “Boys Only”, and the other is entitled “Girls Only”. Based on the table of contents, see if you can figure out which one is which.
Option 1:
- How to Survive a shark attack
- How to Survive in a Forest
- How to Survive Frostbite
- How to Survive a Plane Crash
- How to Survive in the Desert
- How to Survive a Polar Bear Attack
- How to Survive a Flash Flood
- How to Survive a Broken Leg
- How to Survive an Earthquake
- How to Survive a Forest Fire
- How to Survive in a Whiteout
- How to Survive a Zombie Invasion
- How to Survive a Snakebite
- How to Survive if Your Parachute Fails
- How to Survive a Croc Attack
- How to Survive a Lightning Strike
- How to Survive a T-Rex
- How to Survive Whitewater Rapids
- How to Survive a Sinking Ship
- How to Survive a Vampire Attack
- How to Survive an Avalanche
- How to Survive a Tornado
- How to Survive Quicksand
- How to Survive a Fall
- How to Survive a Swarm of Bees
- How to Survive in Space
Option 2:
- How to survive a BFF Fight
- How to Survive Soccer Tryouts
- How to Survive a Breakout
- How to Show You’re Sorry
- How to Have the Best Sleepover Ever
- How to Take the Perfect School Photo
- How to Survive Brothers
- Scary Survival Dos and Don’ts
- How to Handle Becoming Rich
- How to Keep Stuff Secret
- How to Survive Tests
- How to Survive Shyness
- How to Handle Sudden Stardom
- More Stardom Survival Tips
- How to Survive a Camping Trip
- How to Survive a Fashion Disaster
- How to Teach Your Cat to Sit
- How to Turn a No Into a Yes
- Top Tips for Speechmaking
- How to Survive Embarrassment
- How to Be a Mind Reader
- How to Survive a Crush
- Seaside Survival
- How to Soothe Sunburn
- How to Pick Perfect Sunglasses
- Surviving a Zombie Attack
- How to Spot a Frenemy
- Brilliant Boredom Busters
- How to Survive Truth or Dare
- How to Beat Bullies
- How to be an Amazing Babysitter
Something tells me you probably figured it out.
So Jackie’s post was more or less just a copy and paste of the respective tables of contents with the title “Sexist Much?”. Of course, a quick glance at the respective tables of contents was all it really took, and the while thing went viral pretty quickly (speaking for myself, I hit the share button almost as soon as I was done reading), anywhere from Ryan North to BuzzFeed to Jezebel.
As Jackie reports, Scholastic was already (kinda sorta) back peddling by Friday, promising “no further copies will be made available” (whatever that means, since the books are still available for purchase from the Scholastic web page, even with the “Show only books available for purchase” checkbox checked).
How awesome is it that a blogger can throw up a quick post on Thursday (a blogger I know!), and a major publisher can announce they will cease distribution on that book series 24 hours later? How not awesome is it that Scholastic needed the Internet to point out how ridiculously sexist these books were? How did those books ever get past editing and marketing at Scholastic in the first place? Scholastic of all people! Were these books in the book order forms kids bring home from school?
Stupid mistake, Scholastic. I hope this one stings a little. (Or maybe not since their “apology” is insincere at best, and a downright lie at worst, given that they are still selling the books)
You people should be ashamed of yourselves!
Alright, I just heard an excerpt from 50 Shades of Gray. Seriously people! How can you go on a public place like Facebook and recommend this to your friends without being embarrassed?
It would be like if I sent you a message that everyone could see that said, “Hey, I really like this porn site, you should totally check it out! I stayed up all night surfing, I just couldn’t turn off the computer. It’s full of really degenerate stuff…you would totally like it!”
I mean, by all means read it and enjoy it, but have the common decency to be repressed and embarrassed about it. That’s the American way.
Sheesh.
Quote Monday reaches a new low
::Ollie and I are waiting and waiting for a bathroom stall to open up::
::Sweaty man comes out of a stall::
Man: “I think I need to go get some antibiotics!”
I’m sure there are worse things that can be said to you before you take your toddler into a bathroom stall, but I’m at a loss to come up with any.
Evie: “I think you should give Ollie constant attention, and mama should give me constant attention. Except if you need to make meals.”
Evie: “If I could add to the song, I would say, ‘May there aaaaaalways be cars.’ Oh, and how about, ‘May there neeeeeeever be traffic.'”
Me: “I’m tired. I think maybe you and Ollie should tuck me in for a nap and then you guys can do the dishes and the laundry instead.”
Evie: “Oh I would love to do that, but unfortunately that’s just not the way it works.”
Things that Annoy Me, Writing Edition
I could have called this the “cliche” edition, because the main reason all of these things drive me nuts is because I see them over, and over, and over again. And you know, most of them come down to someone trying to be cute. Nothing annoys me faster than someone trying too hard to be cute.
- The fact that every writer’s bio starts with, “She’s been writing stories since she was six…” or “His first story was scribbled on a napkin at the age of four…” Yeah we get it, you like to write, always have, always will. That’s sort of proven by the fact that you’ve A) finished at least one book, and B) you’ve had the drive to persevere long enough to get it published. Among published authors, it doesn’t make you unique, it makes you normal. The whole point of putting that in there is because you think you’re some kind of phenom I guess, but based on the number of author bios I’ve seen this in, it makes you anything but. So why mention it? Everybody has the same story, doesn’t that automatically make it uninteresting? Shouldn’t authors know how to make words interesting? If you were such hot shit at age 5, why didn’t you get that first story published instead of this one?
- “Oh, you know, my characters did this, my characters did that…I just couldn’t control them!” I know that this is really a result of someone trying to put into words something that is hard to put into words: the fact that, once you have developed a character and a story, the words start to flow freely, because once you know everything, it all happens naturally. In addition, once you know how a character thinks and acts, you sometimes find out that events you had pre-planned no longer work. But that’s a result of your poor planning, not of your characters coming to life! That’s the natural evolution of a story: things that you thought would work out end up not working out after all. So as long as that’s what you mean when you say your character took control, I’m fine with it. Just don’t try to pretend like your characters exist outside of yourself though. It makes you sound pretentious.
- “My muse tells me…”, or “Oh, I never know when my muse will strike!” or “::shrug:: I guess my muse wasn’t with me that day.” Again, best case scenario, you’re just trying to use a trite phrase to indicate that writing is difficult or sometimes inconsistent. But even then, why use the word “muse”? I guess it’s supposed to seem quirky or interesting somehow? Worst case scenario, you’re using words to give yourself a built in excuse for not writing well or not succeeding. And everything I’ve ever read from pros indicates that you better teach yourself how to perform when you need to, not when your “muse is upon you”.
- When someone asks a writer how they wrote such an amazing story, and they answer “I just wrote a story I would want to read.” So simple isn’t it? Of course, that’s what everybody is *trying* to do, so the question is really asking, “How did you manage to accomplish that?” I can assure you, nobody who is putting pen to paper is trying to write a story that nobody would want to read.
- “You should be a writer!” Oh, if I had a dime for every time I heard that one. Believe me, I’m trying. If it were so easy, then I guess everybody would do it. I realize that nobody knows I’m actually trying to be a writer, but nevertheless, it does kind of trivialize the effort I’ve been putting in.
Shane Halbach 