The Defiant Ones

In today’s picture books, the kids are in charge.

(The New Yorker) Anxious parents—the midnight Googlers who repeatedly seek advice from experts—learn that there are many things they must never do to their willful young child: spank, scold, bestow frequent praise, criticize, plead, withhold affection, take away toys, “model” angry emotions, intimidate, bargain, nag. Increasingly, nearly all forms of discipline appear morally suspect. The educator Alfie Kohn, writing recently in the Times, condemns the timeout—the canonical punishment of recent decades—declaring that it is more honest to say you are “forcibly isolating” your child. Even an approach as seemingly benign as awarding gold stars, Kohn warns, is a manipulation that “teaches children that they are loved” only when they perform a “good job.”

So what should you do when a child throws a tantrum? Many parents, determined not to be cruel or counterproductive, latch on to pre-approved language from books. Walk through a Manhattan playground and you’ll hear parents responding to their dirt-throwing, swing-stealing offspring with a studied flatness. A toddler whirling into a rage is quietly instructed, “Use your words.” A preschooler who clocks his classmate is offered the vaguely Zen incantation “Hands are not for hitting.” A kid demanding a Popsicle is given a bland demurral: “I’m sorry, but I don’t respond to whining.” (The preferred vocal inflection is that of a customer-service representative informing an irate caller that the warranty has, indeed, expired.) The brusque imperative “Say ‘please’!” has been supplanted by the mildest of queries: “Is there a nicer way to say that?” The efficacy of this clinical approach has not been confirmed by science, but it certainly feels scientific, in part because the parents conduct themselves as if their child were the subject of a peer-reviewed experiment.

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Like the novel or the sitcom, the picture book records shifts in domestic life: newspaper-burrowing fathers have been replaced by eager, if bumbling, diaper-changers. Similarly, the stern disciplinarians of the past—in Robert McCloskey books, parents instruct children not to cry—have largely vanished. The parents in today’s stories suffer the same diminution in authority felt by the parents reading them aloud (an hour past bedtime). The typical adult in a contemporary picture book is harried and befuddled, scurrying to fulfill a child’s wishes and then hesitantly drawing the line. And the default temperament of the child is bratty, though often in a way so zesty and creative that the behavioral transgressions take on the quality of art.

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Classic picture books like “Curious George” tend to present mischief as a pileup of innocent mistakes, and embed them within a narrative frame: a trip to the zoo, a night in the hospital. Many of today’s popular picture books don’t even bother with storytelling; they present misdeeds as pure spectacle. …

Children’s books have often replaced human families with furry counterparts, but a popular series from Scholastic offers a humiliating variation: the parents remain human, while their children are depicted as rampaging giant lizards. Without reading a word, we know who wields the domestic power.

In the latest installment, “How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You?” ($16.99), by Jane Yolen, with deadpan illustrations by Mark Teague, the rhymes confirm that the parents are pushovers: “Out in the sandbox you threw lots of sand. / You ran from the slide, after slapping my hand. / But you suddenly turned with a smile I adore. / Oh, I’ll always love you, my dinosaur.” It goes without saying that we parents should love our children unconditionally, but the implication here is that the slightest gesture of sweetness trumps a day’s worth of belligerence. The grownups in “Dinosaurs” are easy prey. On one spread, a Nothosaurus hurls his pasta into the air, turning it into confetti; the parents gaze across the table with Hopperesque blankness. (To be fair, the dad manages a raised eyebrow.) Clearly, this is just a typical evening: “Dinner disaster! You made such a mess! / Would you stay up past bedtime? The answer was YES!”

Many recent picture books offer inventive variations on the theme of parental subjection. Consider a recent entry in the “Knuffle Bunny” series (Hyperion), by Mo Willems, which revolves around the obsessive relationship between Trixie, a Brooklyn girl, and her plush bunny. Trixie, beginning school in Park Slope, discovers that another girl owns the same toy. They accidentally switch bunnies. That night, Trixie wakes up and realizes that her comfort object is an alien impostor. She flips out—she wants Knuffle Bunny, now! Her dad sheepishly requests a reprieve: “Trixie’s daddy tried to explain what ‘2:30 A.M.’ means. He asked, ‘Can we deal with this in the morning?’ ” Trixie’s fixed stare makes clear that the answer is no. Salvation comes in the form of a ringing phone: the other girl’s father, equally cowed, has called to propose a handoff in Prospect Park. There’s an element of satire here, but the idea that children have executive authority is now so entrenched that many readers, old and young, are likely to consider a moonlit stuffed-animal exchange an ordinary turn of events.

The parents in picture books used to be tougher. In “Bedtime for Frances” (1960), a little badger—as clever as Olivia, but less snotty—devises various schemes for staying up late. (“I forgot to brush my teeth”; “There is a tiger in my room.”) The author, Russell Hoban, lets young readers root for Frances but makes clear that it’s not a game that the badger can win. Frances’s father—after reminding her that he needs sleep so that he can be ready for his job the next morning—calmly issues the threat of a spanking. Implied violence is probably not the ideal means of maintaining control. Yet, a few pages later, Frances is fast asleep. …

One of the best writers of contemporary picture books is Kevin Henkes, a Wisconsin artist, whose Midwestern good sense is paired with a cheery pastel palette. For the past two decades, he has been depicting families as amiable, orderly mice. Henkes’s clean lines give his dot-eyed creatures a machined, Hello Kitty cuteness, but their emotions are palpably human. Henkes’s parental characters—who furtively turn to books such as “The Inner Mouse, Vol. 1: Childhood Anxiety”—are the more realistic heirs to the unfailingly wise badgers of Hoban’s “Frances” series, who outflanked their daughter with sitcom efficiency.

A number of Henkes’s books center on a bright girl named Lilly. She is a good kid, but imperfect. “Lilly’s Big Day” (Greenwillow; $17.99) chronicles her bitterness when a rival child is selected to be the flower girl at a wedding. “Julius, the Baby of the World” (Greenwillow; $16.99) is about Lilly’s jealousy of her new baby brother. Henkes often depicts parents as scratching their heads, brows furrowed, and portrays their speech as comically deliberate. Lilly, whose loud singing threatens to wake the baby, is asked, “Why don’t you put some of that verbal exuberance to good use?” At the same time, the parents are firm and consistent. When Lilly calls Julius a “germ,” or pinches his tail, she is swiftly sent to the “uncooperative chair.” (In Henkes’s universe, at least, a timeout works pretty well.)

“Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse” (Greenwillow; $16.99), the best Lilly story, is about rudeness and interrupting. In its subtlety, it is worlds away from “My Mouth Is a Volcano!” Lilly, a teacher’s darling, comes to school with a new purse, and is frustrated by the long wait until show-and-tell. During a reading lesson, Lilly bursts out, “Look, everyone. Look what I’ve got!” Her teacher, Mr. Slinger—another competent adult—takes away the purse: “I’ll just keep your things at my desk until the end of the day.” Lilly’s anger festers all afternoon, until, in retaliation, she draws a mean picture of Mr. Slinger—giving it the title “Big Fat Mean Mr. Stealing Teacher”—and slips it into his briefcase.

Lilly, unlike her fictional peers, doesn’t revel in her clever misdeed. Instead, she spends the evening feeling “simply awful” about the bad thing that she’s done. Lilly skips cartoons and puts herself in the uncoöperative chair. She then confesses to her parents, who help her focus on what she can do to make amends. Henkes’s book is squarely traditional in its message, yet in the context of modern picture books its confidence in the idea that young children are capable of sympathy—even moral growth—feels positively radical. ♦

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