I try to familiarize my kids with my childhood book collection every chance I get. T is taking nicely to them, V still has to warm up to my favorites. It is a pleasure to see the books being enjoyed by another generation. It is not easy though. Going through them again made me realize that like most other things in life, most children's literature has become ... simple and straightforward (dim-wit friendly). There is hardly any compulsion for the reader to think. There is a very overt attempt to shield the kids from any negative emotion, turning every plot into a bland dinner, a 2-dimensional mural.
On another note, just like NatGeo, RD also concluded its publishing. Fall of another giant. Well, a has-been really. RD stopped being great in the early 2000's in my opinion. But still, there were so many memories. The 80's and 90's were golden periods for a lot of artistic endeavors that produced content that could be consumed by the everyday man constructively.
I got out my old Walter Foster book recently. I have decided to finish a canvas, that had been left unfinished for at least 20 years. Though I haven't actually started working on it again, the process of going through the book took me back a couple of decades ago. So time travel is real.
