Adam Carolla - Daddy, Stop Talking! - And Other Things My Kids Want but Won't Be Getting

I tried to have a moment and not judge, and just enjoy doing something Sonny liked. Like all little boys, he loved dinosaurs. But I barely made it past the title. It’s shitty alliteration. That’s the first strike. And it doesn’t rhyme. Strike two. Strikes three through twenty-eight were the writing. After Danny rides the dinosaur out of the museum, a dog barks at him. Here’s a true quote from the book: “ ‘Bow wow!’ said a dog. ‘Go away, dog. We are not a car,’ said Danny.”

I feel like anyone could write that book. You could figure out exactly how long it took to compose by dividing the number of words it contains by the word per minute count of the author’s typing test. There is nothing complex or interesting about this story. At all. It would barely count as a first draft.

But buckle up for the big ending. There’s a message to be sent. The other children leave and the dinosaur says he has to go back to the museum, but he had a good time with Danny. Danny walks away and goes home. Wow. I’m telling you, that is some Breaking Bad —level plot twisting right there. That’s not an ending. That’s just the place where the author stopping writing. That book ended because the writer needed to take a leak.

The good news is that I don’t think Sonny liked it either. But then again, I did read with so much disdain in my voice, I didn’t really sell it.

People always tell me not to care about how bad children’s books and cartoons are, but kids absorb this stuff. Parents are told that exposing their children to the arts and to classical music helps with brain development. Kids suck up stuff like sponges, right? Would you rather your kids’ spongy brains soak up Mozart, or Flo-Rida? Why not go for some higher-quality books while you’re at it?

One book I had to read the kids, that did rhyme, was Who Took the Cookie from the Cookie Jar? This was one Natalia wanted. They adapted it from a kids’ playground song. The first page was the phrase “Who took the cookies from the cookie jar?” repeated three times. Then a skunk spends the next ten pages accusing lizards, mice, raccoons, frogs and other creatures of taking the cookies. Spoiler alert, it turns out it was the ants. But after they get caught, the ants share the cookies. This book goes nowhere and sends a terrible message about theft. So, kids, if you get caught shoplifting a couple iPhone cases, just offer to share them with the mall security guard and everyone will be happy.

Here’s the thing that really bothered me about this particular book. I can almost give a pass on shitty writing if the person also illustrated their own story. Okay, maybe you’re a hack writer, but at least you can draw. But this book was written by not one, but two people — Bonnie Lass and Philemon Sturges — and illustrated by a third, Ashley Wolff. Is this actually a three-person job? I’m the only one required to make a literal shit; why does it take three people to produce a literary shit?

So my answer to the question “Who took the cookies from the cookie jar?” is WHO GIVES A FUCK?! What was really taken was fifteen minutes from my life that I would like back.

The worst of them all is Where the Wild Things Are . This beloved tome has probably sold two zillion copies worldwide over the last forty-five years. Like all parents, I had to read this garbage to my kids. As with all the other kids’ books I’ve been bashing, this is a story about nothing, it goes nowhere and it doesn’t even rhyme. Credit where credit is due, the illustration is great, but the words you could write in less than an afternoon.

Those of you who doubt me and wax nostalgic about this book, please read it again and tell me if it’s not a pile of shit, or originally written in Hungarian and poorly translated. Because it seems very strange.

And like the ants in the cookie jar book there is a negative message in Where the Wild Things Are, too. The kid is being a little shit, even chasing the dog around with a fork, and is thus sent to bed without supper (which, by the way, parents don’t get to do anymore. They’d have child protective services called on them). So he’s in his room, apparently drops some peyote, floats out the window and goes to a magical place inhabited by some enormous creatures that don’t really seem to bother him. They make him their king, but he splits, even though they wanted him to stay and when he gets back from his acid trip his food was waiting for him. Message received. Be a total asshole to your parents, and then abandon your friends. No problem. There won’t be any consequences.

Also, like the cookie jar book, it does that cop-out stretch writing thing. It’s the literary equivalent of like stepping on cocaine with baby powder. In Where the Wild Things Are there are three pages for the following phrases “And he got in his boat and he sailed… And sailed… And he sailed some more.” Is your typewriter broken in a way that only allows you to write that sentence? I’m writing this book. I have a word count from my publishers. I can’t just write the same sentence over… and over… and over… and over again.

When I looked up Maurice Sendak’s credits I was thoroughly unsurprised to find that he never did a single book for adults. It’s not like “Oh, and he also wrote All the President’s Men .”

Here’s the real problem. Whether it’s Mapplethorpe and Piss Christ or a shitty Adam Sandler movie I’m not bringing my family to see it. But I’m forced to read these books. I have to read to my kids, and thus put this toxic waste into my brain, filling valuable real estate that could be taken up with vintage racing cars and porn.

This has been going on for centuries. Slightly after the invention of the printing press, parents were being tortured with this tripe. Not that it always has to be published. Nursery rhymes suck, too.

You’ve got an old woman who lives in a shoe with too many kids and is probably on welfare, babies in cradles falling out of trees, you’ve got three blind mice having their tails cut off with a butcher’s knife and the ring around the rosie song is about the plague.

Then there’s Lizzie Borden. We used to take horrible shit and turn it into nursery rhymes. This chick murdered her family. Adorable. That was apparently novel enough to turn it into a nursery rhyme. Unfortunately, something like this happens every day in Dade County. Do we have a Charles Manson nursery rhyme? Are kids on the playground singing nursery rhymes about that chick who drowned her kids in the tub?

It occurred to me one night when I was playing with Sonny’s feet how lame the “This Little Piggy” nursery rhyme is. In fact, we shouldn’t even call it a nursery rhyme since it doesn’t fucking rhyme. This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home, this little piggy had roast beef, this little piggy had none. And this little piggy went wee wee wee all the way home. Not even an attempt at a rhyme.

This little ditty first appeared in 1728, well before the Internet. So this piece of shit spread by word of mouth. How did it catch on? There’s a weird foot fetish angle to it. I’m convinced that this was “written” by a foot fetish pedophile who wanted to get his neighbors to take their kids’ shoes off in front of him. “Hey, I’ve got this great thing you can say to your kids. But first they need to take their shoes off. Yeah, that’s the stuff… slower… slower.”

Also, it is lazy. So the first piggy went to market. Okay, good start. But then the second stayed home? He couldn’t go to the carnival or the castle or something? He literally does nothing? The third one had roast beef, which has to be an awkward conversation with the cows he sees at the farm. “How was lunch?” “Good, I ate your brother-in-law.” Then the fourth piggy has none. He doesn’t eat anything. Creatively, the author just gave up. I want to find this guy and go wee wee wee on his grave.