Mary Anning

More nonfiction for my child. I love it.

And education for me! My kid is possibly entering the obligatory Dinosaur Phase (oh I do hope so), so I thought this would be nice. DINOS! I had never heard of Mary Anning before this. As a parent, I am increasingly being made aware of just how much of the Stone Age I am. Anyway, we learned together.

Art style was lovely. I spent a lot of time pondering it.

Concepts from this book that I had to explain to my 3 yr old (and what I said):
- Poor: not having money
- The male scientists stealing Mary's work: uhhhhhhhh A lot of these Little People, Big Dreams books are clearly advancing a feminist agenda. Which is great. I am feminist. They are fighting the good fight. But sexism and the patriarchy is something I am really challenged in explaining to my kids. “Some people think boys are better than girls”? Uhh, screw that, I'd rather not even tell them that. “Long ago, girls weren't allowed to do certain things?” That applies to boys too. “The patriarchy keeps both men AND women down. And that's not even to touch on non-binary, transgender people. We have a patriarchy because we're irrational apes, okay, and so we don't always make the best choices, like as a society. Some think it grew out of the agricultural revolution - yes indeed lots of present-day power structures really started then” shut up Mom just please shut up.

It's funny. I just hate saddling my small small kids with all this grown-up, Stone Age bullshit and sadness of our specific societal/American/Western/WEIRD -isms. I kind of want to keep them pure and innocent, rather than recruit them into the good fight already? I am also really struggling with how to parent a son vs. a daughter, given that it's like, “look here, son, the boys are assholes stealing Mary Anning's work cuz she's a girl, poor Mary Anning - hey, kids, don't fight”. Ugh. Oh glob. What to do.