MCLC: Restrictions on foreign children's books (2)

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Restrictions on foreign children’s books (2)
As a person who reads both English and Chinese books to my kids I find this news a pity. In second tier China, it can be tough finding good books for kids to read. The government wants to combat Internet addiction but reduces the amount of choice on books. 
Last weekend I went to the local library which has a 2 great, massive children's sections. The western section of books was understandably small but we found a version of Disney Frozen that my son got a kick out of. I guess some books like Doctor Seuss have some questioning themes like Green eggs and Ham, and the Snitches on the Beachs (Ones with stars upon thars are better than those without).  This also might have a serious knock on affect to the Massive Disney English franchise that uses Disney books for teaching. 
Chinese kids books vary tremendous and a few seemed downright scary to me. One was about a mother who lost her temper at a kid who was then sucked down a magic black whole to experience worlds that had become extreme according to different ways the kid had been naughty. 
Another issue is the difficulty level of books can be quite variable as well. 
Reading books with little kids at a library or bookstore, is one of the few indoor bonding activities easy to do with kids and parents. Compared to the plonking them in a passive ball pit or encouraging aggressiveness with Tai Kwan Do classes seem like poor substitutes. 
As if a nod to the addictiveness of technology even in the library, with in the kids sections of the library there are big touch screen educational games. As my kids worked on the pinyin options and mock cashier game, I watch next door a mother helping her 10 year old with a multiple choice finish the idiom phrase game. Out of the 4 questions the mother got 3 of the questions wrong. There was a line for the screens so after 5 minutes we went back to the kids section of books. I guess we should enjoy the English section while it is still there. 
Perhaps this is a knee jerk reaction to the elites children going abroad for education. I hope in the future the "powers that be" look to improve the local quality rather than restricting competition.
Simon Laing <slaing4 at gmail.com>
by denton.2 at osu.edu on March 20, 2017
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