"This is Our Parish"
I skimmed through the old Catholic reader I found, and mentioned earlier, where the Wholesome White Family moves from the city to An Idyllic (White) Small Town in simplistic sentences.
The kids involved are two brothers and a little sister.
Little sister's purpose, from the paragraphs my eyes landed on is basically to be the "Silly little immature girl who needs to learn the ways of Jeebus and being Good and Moral".
Maybe I just somehow missed many many instances of the boy-children being confused and asking 'stupid' questions or being selfish, but hm, seemed to always be the little girl (who is the youngest, and from the illustrations is like, um, maybe five to seven?) that gets the Patient Explaining Until She Sees The Light And Can Apologize For Being Bad And Change Her Ways! PRAISE JEEBUS!
The one I ranted and giggled about to my buddy revulo on AIM in particular is the one where the new library wants books! The children have books! They are asked to donate some!
Guess what happens?
The little girl goes to her shelf and sees all these books she really loves, with beautiful illustrations, and shininess, they're totally awesome! But there's a few books that are damaged or that she's bored of, or doesn't much like, so ok, yeah, she'll donate those.
Her brothers have huge honking piles of books they are donating! Including brand new looking ones that she is shocked that they're donating because "Why they look new!"
There's one with 'beautiful pictures' she hasn't read, and her wonderful gracious older brother who is soon not owning it anymore says she can read it before he gives it away. Rapture! It is a tale of Jesus! Explaining how it's better to give a lot and good things, than a few things!
Moved by this, she of course is a Good Girl and gets all those books she'd been so sillily attached to and donates them! Awww! After all, she can read them any time if they are in the Library!
...Except (*cough* in the real world) when someone else has them checked out. Or after library hours.
And those pictures she really loves might get torn up and colored on by some little shit who doesn't appreciate books. And the pages dogeared, and the spines broken, and stuff spilled on them, in fact the book might be dropped by a borrower into a puddle and have all its pages fuse together, and get tossed by the library.
Oh, and that's IF the library needs/wants those books for their actual shelves, because it could be those books aren't all that popular, or that they already have copies, and in that case they'll sell them for fifty cents at a sale, and in worst case scenario, to read the book again the kid'll have to buy it all over (because this was printed in 1950, and I dunno how many interlibrary loan programs there were).
Clearly, I am an awful person because damn, I *keep* books UNTIL I AM POSITIVE that I am tired of them.
The kids involved are two brothers and a little sister.
Little sister's purpose, from the paragraphs my eyes landed on is basically to be the "Silly little immature girl who needs to learn the ways of Jeebus and being Good and Moral".
Maybe I just somehow missed many many instances of the boy-children being confused and asking 'stupid' questions or being selfish, but hm, seemed to always be the little girl (who is the youngest, and from the illustrations is like, um, maybe five to seven?) that gets the Patient Explaining Until She Sees The Light And Can Apologize For Being Bad And Change Her Ways! PRAISE JEEBUS!
The one I ranted and giggled about to my buddy revulo on AIM in particular is the one where the new library wants books! The children have books! They are asked to donate some!
Guess what happens?
The little girl goes to her shelf and sees all these books she really loves, with beautiful illustrations, and shininess, they're totally awesome! But there's a few books that are damaged or that she's bored of, or doesn't much like, so ok, yeah, she'll donate those.
Her brothers have huge honking piles of books they are donating! Including brand new looking ones that she is shocked that they're donating because "Why they look new!"
There's one with 'beautiful pictures' she hasn't read, and her wonderful gracious older brother who is soon not owning it anymore says she can read it before he gives it away. Rapture! It is a tale of Jesus! Explaining how it's better to give a lot and good things, than a few things!
Moved by this, she of course is a Good Girl and gets all those books she'd been so sillily attached to and donates them! Awww! After all, she can read them any time if they are in the Library!
...Except (*cough* in the real world) when someone else has them checked out. Or after library hours.
And those pictures she really loves might get torn up and colored on by some little shit who doesn't appreciate books. And the pages dogeared, and the spines broken, and stuff spilled on them, in fact the book might be dropped by a borrower into a puddle and have all its pages fuse together, and get tossed by the library.
Oh, and that's IF the library needs/wants those books for their actual shelves, because it could be those books aren't all that popular, or that they already have copies, and in that case they'll sell them for fifty cents at a sale, and in worst case scenario, to read the book again the kid'll have to buy it all over (because this was printed in 1950, and I dunno how many interlibrary loan programs there were).
Clearly, I am an awful person because damn, I *keep* books UNTIL I AM POSITIVE that I am tired of them.