Spirit Animals

I've just been reading about a new series of children's books from Scholastic, called Spirit Animals. It is, according to the publisher, "part engrossing book series and part role-playing game." When the children buy the books, they are able to unlock new elements of an online game in which they create a character and go on quests alongside the book characters.

The librarian in me immediately thinks, "Using games to encourage children to read! Great!"

The role-player in me immediately thinks, "Using books to encourage children to play roleplaying games! Great!"

The cynic in me, rather belatedly, thinks, "Money-grabbing marketing ploy. Grump!"

I am, in short, Conflicted and Confused.

History

And while I'm on the subject of posts prompted by children's books...

There's a series of children's history books called "The Gruesome Truth About..." ("the Middle Ages," "The Romans," and so on.) They're fun, they're popular, and I don't have a problem with them. However, I just noticed that the blurb on the back says that this series will tell readers "the bits of history no-one ever tells you about" - i.e. the yucky, gory bits.

No-one ever tells you about? Really? What about Horrible Histories? And they are only the start. There's "The short and bloody history of..." series. There's a series called "Danger Zone": "entertaining and amusing books which explore the more grisly aspects of life during various historical periods." (Titles in this series always start "How to avoid..." which makes a certain amount of sense in some titles - "How to avoid being an Aztec sacrifice" - but are plain silly in others - "How to avoid being Leonardo Da Vinci.")

There's a series with titles along the lines of "Top 10 worst things about Ancient Egypt you wouldn't like to know." Tony Robinson has a history series called "Weird World of Wonders," which promises to focus on the "strange and disgusting." There are "Horribly Famous" historial biographies - "100% horrible!" reads the blood-red seal on the cover - and a "Weird True Facts" series.

In fact, if you believe children's history books aimed at the leisure market (as opposed to school books), history is one long, unrelieved cesspit of gore and poo, in which weird, wacky people doing weird, wacky things. I do like seeing children inspired by history, but I do wish it wasn't quite so universally dominated by one exaggerated aspect. In particular, I wish each series wouldn't make out that they're daring and unique, when really they're all just the same.