Hi Z_Apostrophe, Enjoyed your thought-provoking story! It brought back memories. I wasn’t much of a reader as a kid but still enjoyed the Enid Blyton’s series. Like you said I just loved reading on all those farm breakfasts the FAMOUS 5 dug into.

I don’t understand how RACE comes up in everything. A few weeks back I came across a story about Barbie being racist because there are more white dolls than black dolls. Should we biopsy every small thing and grade it for racism before we give it to our kids for consumption?

Why can’t we just let kids be kids and enjoy a book or a toy?

As a kid, I didn’t care if the kids were white or if the mother was cooking. I just got lost in their adventure and lived vicariously through them. It took me to another place. Isn’t that what reading should be about- expanding your imagination and horizons.

I feel in the end parents are responsible for the way their kids treat others, not a book or a toy. We need to be their teachers about racism by setting an example by the way we treat and talk about people of other races.

We shouldn’t expect Enid Blyton or anybody else to teach that lesson to them.