Original here.

P.S. Miss you.

I discovered that Scholastic corporate communications has a blog after CCFC brought�the Scholastic�”book” club — complete with toys, videos, and other products — to the attention of New York Times readers.

We’ve seen the Scholastic book club flyers come home in backpacks for several years now. We manage it with�two simple rules: No licensed-character books. No books with “accessories.”

And as my daughters have learned, that doesn’t leave a lot of options.

Scholastic defends their book club offerings on their blog:

I have to say, I find�[CCFC’s] campaign seriously misguided. I’m actually shocked that it continues to get ink.

Scholastic falls back on the argument that reluctant readers need incentives — stuffed animals, stickers, or videos — to engage in reading.

Interesting.

When�the Young Adult Library Services Association (a division of the American Library Association) chooses their annual list of�the best books for reluctant young readers, they look at the book’s physical appearance, writing style, characters, and plot. No mention of product incentives�there.

Ditto for the�advice to parents of reluctant readers on Scholastic’s own website, which�points to�choosing age-appropriate books�at the right reading level. It encourages parents to allow kids to read non-book material such as comics, magazines, or newspapers.

But this is not the same as purchasing a�necklace or craft kit for your reluctant reader.

This is where, I think, Scholastic got off track. From the Sun Sentinel:

Scholastic calls that a way to “stay relevant” in the battle to engage kids’ interest. But hawking playthings in the name of education isn’t relevance. It’s a sell-out . . . .

Scholastic should be able to�sell whatever it wants. But not within the walls of�a�school.

And if Scholastic is so concerned about reluctant readers, perhaps they should pay a little more attention to what the real experts are saying will help kids.

Only one of�the ALA’s 2008 Ten Top Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Readers is available through Scholastic.

And that is why this story continues to get ink.

Take action: contact Scholastic.

Photo courtesy melissann

Gee,�I hate to kick Disney when its down, but they’re just asking for it when they start putting the licensed-character gang on my eggs:

Bonus Disney links:

Disney’s contributions toward the sexualization of girls�are okay, up to a point: That’s Enough, Disney Girls looks at the inherent problems of being a young female Disney star.

And for even more Disney fun, review the 9 Most Racist Disney Characters (h/t Sociological Images).

I wanted to draw your attention to this comment from Mom Librarian on my post on alternatives to a Scholastic book fair, excerpted here:

For the past 8 years, I’ve been Librarian for our children’s private school, and we’ve done Scholastic fairs every fall. . . . Our entire Library budget comes from our Book Fairs, so it’s not an option not to have them.

Here’s the deal. As for the Scholastic, they have always been really nice and extremely concerned and responsive to our needs as far as their distribution strategy allows. I have explained that we don’t want all the licensed characters and cartoon junk, we are trying to promote literacy with well-written books. . . . They always attempt to send what I ask for, but the truth is their warehouse people are not trained in children’s literature, they are packing widgets. They send 8 cases, I pull everything I don’t like and store it in two of them, show the other 6. Call it censorship, call it whatever you like, but that’s the way we do it. . . . Scholastic knows I do it. It is a matter of letting me sell what the parents at our school are willing to buy, and its not cartoon junk.

The really sad thing, to me, is that Scholastic has an amazing network, great people, a massive system already in place, and nearly unlimited capacity to do great things, but in the past 8 years, they have discontinued carrying nearly every kids series considered wholesome classics by most librarians. . . .

Back to square one. As for Fall, we’ll keep struggling on with Scholastic till something more tailored to our needs comes along. But for the stuff I won’t sell, I just say no.

Thanks, Mom Librarian, for sharing your strategy. Frankly, I didn’t know this was even possible. More importantly, however, this is�a call to Scholastic to give customers what they want.

I’ve often written that I’ll quit criticizing the unequal gender standards portrayed in marketing directed at kids when, among other things, women receive equal pay for equal work. Last week, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a step in the right direction.

Talking about the first bill he signed as president,�Obama says:

. . . And I sign this bill for my daughters, and all those who will come after us, because I want them to grow up in a nation that values their contributions, where there are no limits to their dreams and they have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers never could have imagined.

In the end, that’s why Lilly stayed the course. She knew it was too late for her — that this bill wouldn’t undo the years of injustice she faced or restore the earnings she was denied. But this grandmother from Alabama kept on fighting, because she was thinking about the next generation. It’s what we’ve always done in America — set our sights high for ourselves, but even higher for our children and our grandchildren.

If you can’t take time to watch his full speech�(but I think you should), then at least take a look at these visuals illustrating the powerful change that an Obama presidency promises. (via @pfhyper)

Many women and girls�still don’t understand that celebrity and model print images are not necessarily real. Here’s a way to drive the point home: Photoshop tools plastered alongside faked images. Adbusting at its finest. (via @schmelzenfreude)

Did mocking McDonald’s Mom-centered advertising strategies on air�get Twin Cities AM1500 radio host Tommy Mischke fired? David Brauer interviews Mischke:

I had read a news account at cnn.com having to do with the McDonalds Corporation wooing American moms by taking them to their headquarters and having them examine the nutritional quality of their food.

It was part of an ad campaign whereby McDonald’s personnel would be filmed telling American moms such things as how high in potassium French fries were and how other items, once thought to be unhealthy, were in fact good for children.

Well, I had a field day on the air mocking this entire approach to marketing, and only later learned that McDonalds was in the midst of behind scenes negotiations aimed at sponsoring a KSTP/Minnesota Twins promotion for 2009.

Franchise holders were listening to that particular show and became enraged. Suddenly, this advertising agreement with KSTP was threatened. McDonald’s had never before advertised with us, and our demographic is not normally viewed as their target audience, but, as my boss said to me, I had “unintentionally stepped on a land mine.”

We at Parents for Ethical Marketing would name our first award — for going above and beyond the call of duty — after Mischke. If we had one. (via @dbrauer)

The staff here at Parents for Ethical Marketing is thrilled that Michelle Obama is pissed off at Ty, makers of Ty Girlz Dolls, after the introduction of their newest products Marvelous Malia and Sweet Sasha:

“We feel it is inappropriate to use young, private citizens for marketing purposes,” Obama’s press secretary, Katie McCormick Lelyveld, said in a statement yesterday.

We feel it’s inappropriate to change the likeness of a seven-year-old girl into a teen-like doll with breasts.

Ms. Obama, give us a call. We’ll talk.

I was struck by President Bush’s kind words to the Obama family in his farewell address:

And I join all Americans in offering best wishes to President-elect Obama, his wife Michelle, and their two beautiful girls. 

It was the “beautiful girls” that threw me. Unfortunately, I can’t make a direct comparison to the most popular descriptions of young sons who have moved into the White House — there haven’t been any in recent history — but I’m going to venture to guess that they wouldn’t have been described as handsome. Or cute. Or with any termingology that described their physical appearance.

So this is where we are. On Tuesday we’ll be witnessing an historic inauguration and on Wednesday, it will be back to business as usual for American girls: Corporate-created media images and messages telling them that their value lies only in how they look and what they buy.

No example is more appropriate than this dissection* of the premiere lifestyle brand, American Girl:

Some might argue that American Girl is not as bad as other materials on the market, or as offensive as Barbie or Bratz dolls. This argument misses the key features of what makes this phenomenon so insidious: how corporations play on the feminist and /or educative aspirations of parents, teachers, girls, and young women and turn these toward consumption. American Girl is less about strong girls, diversity or history than about marketing girlhood, about hooking girls, their parents and grandparents into buying the American Girl products and experience.

Meant to be lessons in history featuring girls, their books fail, too:

. . . any potential “girl-power” lessons are short-circuited in these books through the use of historical fiction to deliver traditional lessons about what girls can and should do. While the stories take place in key historical moments, such as the Civil War, and World War II, the girls rarely participate in historical events in any substantial way. Meet Molly is set in WWII and her father, a doctor, serves in the U.S. military. Molly’s concerns center on what to be for Halloween and how to deal with a bothersome brother. The historical fictions encourage a limited independence and emphasize conventional “good girl” behaviors. Girls might go on an adventure or two, but these are usually within the bounds of family relationships (e.g., playing tricks on brothers) rather than as social actors in a larger world.

As for those “good girl” behaviors, we look to Harvard historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich who said, “well-behaved women seldom make history.” 

My hope is that we take the inspiration of electing our first black President and continue the momentum until we elect our first woman president. And until half our senators and representatives are women. And until women receive equal pay for equal work.

And it all begins with girls. Smart girls. Strong girls. Capable girls. Energetic girls. Creative girls. Hopeful girls.

More on hope:

New Moon Girls: Advertising-free social networking site for girls 8 to 12, plus the classic magazine. This week they are welcoming Sasha and Malia Obama to the White House and calling on girls to report on inaugural activities. Citizen journalism!

TVbyGirls: In the Twin Cities, TVbyGirls teaches the skills needed for girls to learn how to create their own media to expand expanding “the vitality of images about girls and women.” Watch their videos and if you’re local, get a girl you know involved.

The Girl Revolution: For grown-ups who love girls, “The Girl Revolution’s only aim is to heal the soul of the world by raising powerful girls. . . . We’re going to protect them from media consumption and dissolve every single barrier that exists between girls and gender and economic equality.”

*H/T to our friends at the Institute for Humane Education.

Originally posted May 19, 2008.

Susan Linn, Director of the Campaign for a Commerical-Free Childhood, and Joan Almon from the Alliance for Childhood conducted a workshop on creative play at the CCFC Summit in April.

Linn began the workshop with a simple exercise: she held up three puppets, one at a time, and asked us to write down a) what it was, b) what its name was, and c) something it might say.

The first puppet was really just a white sock over her hand with two eyes attached. The second was similar but also had ears and a mouth. The third was a blue, furry monster we all recognized as Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster.

As you may have guessed, the first puppet elicited a variety of identifications, names, and statements from the participants. The second puppet drew a more limited response. Cookie Monster, of course, was a cookie monster and didn’t say too much beyond “Me want cookie.�

This exercise blew me away in its simplicity and its significance, as does Linn’s new book, The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World.

Linn is a ventriloquist, among other things. She started as a child, performed on the street corners of Boston and eventually moved on to the Smithsonian and even Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. She eventually used her skills and education to become a puppet therapist at Boston Children’s Hospital.

In addition to being the cofounder and director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Linn is the Associate Director of the Media Center at Judge Baker Children’s Center and Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.

In The Case for Make Believe, Linn does just as she promises: makes a case for childhood play by helping us to understand why it so important for childhood development and making us realize how far away from play we’ve gone:

Play is so fundamental to children’s health and well-being�– and so endangered�– that the United Nations lists it as a guaranteed right in its Convention of the Rights of the Child. . . . In the United States and other industrialized nations, seduction, not conscription, lures children away from creative play.

Lovable media characters, cutting-edge technology, brightly colored packaging, and well-funded, psychologically savvy marketing strategies combine in coordinated campaigns to capture the hearts, minds and imaginations of children�– teaching them to value that which can be bought over their own make believe creations.

Reading the book, I was really struck by the fact that our society does not value creative play. Linn talks about how play has almost been eliminated in schools in favor of government-backed policies that “promote rote learning.”

I asked her, in an email interview, if we should return play to the classroom and how we could do that.

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