[lr4444lr]

This just doesn't strike me as true at all. Most of my children's books have very non-descript settings that begin in non-connected single family houses. But regardless of that framing, so many of my kids' books dive into the realm of the protagonist's imagination.

This honestly just sounds like another indirect shot taken at suburban life. I get it, internet content writers disproportionately live in the big cities, but to quote the Dude, this is just like, your opinion, man.

[notahacker]

Yeah. I'm not convinced settings for kids books really tell us more about urban planning than they tell us about the the problem with not enough political situations being solved by encounters with handsome princes these days. And I'm pretty sure that well established story tropes predate suburbanism and republicanism is more of a factor in the popularity of certain types of fantastical settings than magic kingdoms full of trolls being more walkable than the cul-de-sacs kids often grow up in.

It doesn't help that the author acknowledges that there are in fact numerous kids' books set in suburbs, he just doesn't like them very much. :D

[watwut]

The children's books actually show hansome princes very rarely. Those are featured in traditional stories, m but most children's books in bookstore are decisively not that.

What you call well established story tropes is not actual content of actual children's books.

[kaitai]

It seems to me that children's stories have actually changed quite drastically over the years and between cultures and countries. I read my child many old children's stories (say, published between 1930-1960 in northern Europe) and they are scarier and more fantastical and more.. earthy. Lots more casual death and violence between imaginary animals. One reason I keep reading them is that they are interesting and I think they provide better life lessons: now that I'm an adult, I read one somewhat violent tale of a little girl being led astray by a wolf or something (not quite Little Red Riding Hood but something like it) and I was like, wow, this is quite a sophisticated little story describing and naming grooming behavior that leads to child exploitation! This is actually useful, unlike (so many others).

Modern children's books often seem to be written as psychotherapy for adults. For instance, one children's book my kid loves is supposed to have as a lesson that being together with friends is the best thing and we should live in community, but most of what my kid has taken from it is that the protagonist penguin has the most fun while doing stuff alone and yelling "I can do it myself!" It's a pleasant enough book but I think the old stories of danger and foxes and rabbits and bears will stick more. They're all about houses on the edge of the forest... does that count as the suburbs?

[watwut]

You gotta be careful with interpreting the old stories. Many of them were not meant for 5 years old crowd. I honestly never thought about Red Riding Hood as grooming story.

I personally prefered new stories to my children. When they were small, the traditional ones were too long for their attentention span and my patience. And when they were older, it kind of turned out we find them more fun.

Anyway, we liked Hilda comic the most. You might like it, or definitely did not led to psychotherapy feeling.

[notahacker]

I understand JK Rowling's bestselling Ickabog has progressed to a character spurning the affections of the king in favour of a handsome Prime Minister ;) But I don't think there's much room for disagreement that princes and princesses are overrepresented in children's literature (and entertainment in general) relative to other forms of government, and that this tells us precisely nothing about these systems' respective merits. Similarly, I don't think characters in various types of children's books being likely to live in a wood, on the moon or against an unexplained primary coloured background tells us much about merits such environments might have over suburbs.

[watwut]

Those Rowlings are for adults.

And I would say that princes in kids litterature rarely represent goverment. They more of represent someone rich who have it all.

[giantg2]

Most of my childhood books were rural based adventures. The books my kid has are mostly rural or have no setting at all.

I agree that stories involving houses tend to portray single family homes. I can't think of any that actually portray that house in a suburban setting (the premise of the article). I'm sure they are out there, but none come to mind for me.

Then the question is really, so what if the settings are not suburban? I didn't really see an answer to that in the article, so I guess they were just trying to point out that there may be fewer topics for childhood adventures set in suburban areas.

[SpicyLemonZest]

My favorite children's book growing up (the embarrassingly named Captain Underpants) was definitively suburban.

More generally, I guess I'd question what it means to portray a house as suburban. The author seems to be assuming that anywhere with cool nature stuff in walking distance is rural, and that's not true; my definitively suburban house growing up was within easy walking distance of a pretty well-forested park on one side and a creek on the other.

[mcphage]

That was also my biggest problem with this article. Take Calvin and Hobbes—definitely Calvin lives in a suburban environment, but he also has plenty of nature nearby. Would the author consider this rural then? I don’t know, but I don’t think it was.

[iso1210]

Looking at the bookshelf at preschool books, and only including ones with children, I see two :Pirates next door" books, both starting in "Dull-on-sea, a gloomy seaside town", and some Alfie books (where Mum takes him to various locations where he has magical adventures - diving into a swimming pool and being abducted by pirates, been driven to school but it's actually and alien school, etc)

I don't get this hate at suburbs either, unless it's by 30-somethings that love their city lives but now want kids and are trying to convince everyone that the city is the best place. If you think that, that's fine, plenty want space and open air.

There does seem to be an issue with American suburbs though. Every suburb in the UK I can think of has pavements down the side of every road, has a primary school within walking distance, a secondary school in biking distance, a bus stop within half a mile. Indeed there are specific limits like "distance to supermarket", "distance to postbox", etc which come into the planning process.

We also have a National Planning Policy Framework, which states things like

give priority to pedestrian and cycle movements, and have access to high quality public transport facilities

and

create safe and secure layouts which minimise conflicts between traffic and cyclists or pedestrians, avoiding street clutter and where appropriate establishing home zones

New developments have to provide appropriate public open space in them, the larger the development, the more space, but as a rule of thumb a development of 400 houses will have a large multi use game area (basket ball, 5-a-side soccer, etc), playground, and an acre of two of informal green space, far more than in a city or town centre.

There's nothing wrong with suburbs, just how they are implemented.

[drchopchop]

Also, if you change that to "children's shows" instead of "children's books", most of them are set in something resembling a suburb: Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, Bubble Guppies, etc. Sesame Street is a notable exception.

[dhosek]

It's always bothered me that the local government of Adventure Bay chose to outsource pretty much all municipal services to a ten year old boy and his back of trained dogs.

[evilduck]

Bubble Guppies routinely has weird consequences of choosing their cast and setting to be mer-people but that premise being incredibly restrictive to a long running show.

They float and swim around like fish yet somehow they have scenes that will involve something like gathering around the ol' underwater campfire or they'll be "at the beach" and you see their air bubbles floating up, yet you also see waves lapping up on the sand or them build a sandcastle. Or the episode featuring the town fire department and they teach fire safety. They also had an episode where they adopted a puppy. Not a mer-puppy, just a regular dog that would drown shown next to the clearly-just-a-fish teacher Mr. Grouper. Or the episode about _air_planes. Nevermind that the show is clearly tries for an ocean theme most of the time and guppies are a freshwater fish.

I'm glad my kids are aging out of this nonsense. At least Mr. Rogers spoke to kids like real people with emotions and intelligence instead of just assuming they're too stupid to recognize massive internal-inconsistencies.

[Exmoor]

As someone who shares your dislike of Bubble Guppies and also has very positive feelings about my childhood of watching Mr. Rogers, I must say I've been very impressed with the Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. It does a very good job of framing issues faced by children (anger, jealousy, fear, etc.) in a realistic ways and teaching them coping mechanisms.

I'm sure the parent poster is familiar with it, but figured I'd throw out a good word for any current or future HN parents of young children who might be on the lookout for something better than the average drivel the passes for children's TV.

[drchopchop]

Kids don't care about internal inconsistencies. Frankly, neither do many adults (see: practically all Marvel movies)

The show is pretty educational - kids learn about sharing, professions, sing songs about the universe, go on crazy adventures, etc. Mr. Rogers was great in a time when the word was much slower, but now a kids show in 2020 needs lots of pizazz to keep a child's attention.

(I can't believe I'm debating Bubble Guppies on HN)

[dhosek]

Don't be dissing on Mr Rogers, my friend. The show still keeps the attention of modern kids just as well as it did in the 70s, 80s and 90s. My kids would point to the picture of Mr Rogers on the back of their Daniel Tiger books and ask to watch him.

[dhosek]

The choice to set Sesame Street in an urban (and minority) community was very much intentional.

[indymike]

And was usually on just before or after Mr. Roger's Neighborhood which was set in a small town or suburban neighborhood.

[djsumdog]

I never caught that juxtaposition. I wonder if it was intentional or coincidental.

Mr. Rogers also transitions between small town America and a (walkable) fantasy kingdom with a street car connecting the two. Again ... probably doesn't mean anything.

[dhosek]

The trolley was based on the trolleys of Pittsburgh. The non-make-believe neighborhood was inspired by Rogers's childhood home of Latrobe.

[lhorie]

Agreed. The article uses a very cliche American suburb stereotype as if it is representative of suburbs, but ignores the fact that suburb life has more to offer than soccer mom stuff.

Look at Calvin and Hobbes for a good example of a great deal of memorable stuff happening in a clearly suburban setting. A lot of primary/secondary school geared books, especially those geared towards girls, are set in suburban neighborhoods and schools.

Outside of American culture, you can see a lot of suburban themed stories. For example, many school-themed mangas happen in suburbs.

The Brazilian comic Monica's gang is another good example of stories happening primarily with kids hanging around a suburban neighborhood.

[adrianmonk]

If reading the tea leaves about urban planning is the game, then it's also cherry picking.

How come kids are totally disinterested in cars? Oh wait, they're not disinterested in cars. There's a popular series of movies called Cars, and kids' toys include endless variations of cars like remote controlled cars and collections of miniature cars. When playing, kids will happily make vroom vroom noises and simulate car jumps and stunts and crashes, but I have never seen children's play involving the scenario of walking to a restaurant instead of driving there.

[drzaiusapelord]

I feel the same way. As a city kid, I always felt left out because almost everything in US culture is based on the big suburban 'American Dream' home or, less often, rural life. I remember only being able to relate with Sesame Street because, gasp, people lived in apartments and hung out on city blocks with other kids just like I did! Kids books were a mixed bag, but definitely had more city representation than TV or movies.

On a more practical and aesthetic level, drawing cobblestone streets, cozy neighborhood stores, hand carved sandstone facade apartment buildings, etc is a lot more glamourous than drawing tract suburban housing, so I can see the appeal of it aesthetically. Also from what I've read about some of these authors, they were city people as well, so they just drew what they knew. The migration of the middle class to the suburbs didn't happen until many of these authors were well retired, so if kids are reading the more classic books, they'll see a bit more city life than usual and almost exclusively NYC where so many budding creatives had access to NYC's incredible publishing industry.

Lastly, kids can't drive. So if you want a kid having an adventure where he meets various storekeeps, neighbors out running errands, friends, pet stores, schools, etc then a walkable city makes the most sense. Walkable areas are just more communal and neighborly than suburban life as well. Its more realistic if a kid goes on an adventure in a city than in the suburbs were the only practical way around is being driven around. Bikes, less so, when the nearest store is 5+ miles away and there's no bike lanes. I also imagine parents are more comfortable with books not encouraging little kids to ride bikes in the street. As a parent, my recollection is that a lot of the books exist in a weird nebulous middle ground unless they outright take place in NYC or London or Paris for narrative reasons. Kids can walk through a urban downtown area with stores and neighbors but also end up in big suburban houses on big suburban streets in the same book and without taking a bus or a cab between either. So its probably hard to really divide this into city vs suburban if we want to be fair about it. Authors will do whatever fits their narrative. The walkable city is appealing but so is the big home, so why not have both?

[sonotmyname]

> Its more realistic if a kid goes on an adventure in a city than in the suburbs were the only practical way around is being driven around.

As a kids who grew up in a few different suburbs in 2 different countries, I'd challenge that assertion. We had tons of adventures, visited a lot of cool places, and did a lot of exploring (on our own), all within a few miles of our homes. We'd ride out bikes to the liquor store / arcade / cemetery / 7-11 / park / community center / museum etc. When younger, we'd have to get off and push out bikes back up the hill the last few blocks sometimes (I lived on a very steep hillside).

Nothing about living in the 'burbs precludes adventure...

[jdxcode]

yeah, I grew up on a farm which is where loads of children books take place. We had to take a car literally everywhere, including our mailbox.

[djsumdog]

No bicycle?

[jdxcode]

You’d need a serious mountain bike to get to the road and once you’d get there it would be incredibly dangerous to ride.

I did still have one but we rarely used it. There wasn’t anyone to see for miles.