“In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time: the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.”
Mind you, I’m not complaining, but the snow storm just nicked us on its way inland. It was even raining when I woke up, and my street was covered in slush and had two ruts running down it where some brave soul had driven his car. Right now we have a sprinkling of snow falling, and the sun has appeared a couple of times from behind the cloud where it has been hiding, but I doubt it will stay long. It’s really cold and a wind is blowing the branches and dead leaves. The birds are in abundance at the feeders. Goldfinches outnumber my faithful chickadees. They perch at the feeder and sway with the wind. The rain has pockmarked the snow leftover from the last storm. Today is winter at its ugliest.
Last night, most schools had already chosen to close today, and their names scrolled across the bottom of the TV screen. I used to love snow days, especially when I was a teacher. It always seemed a gift even though I knew I’d have to give it back in June. It was a day I could do anything I wanted. I’d stay in my comfy clothes, read, take a nap and eat junk food. Nothing enticed me to leave the warmth of hearth and home.
In Sunday’s crossword in the Boston Globe, one of the clues was a Bobbsey Twin. It was only three letters so I knew right away the answer was Nan, twin to Bert, but I wondered how many solvers had to work around it to fill in the answer. The Bobbsey Twins were a favorite read of mine when I was young. Freddie and Flossie, the other set of twins, were too young for me, but I easily identified with Nan.
You can still find The Bobbsey Twins. Amazon sells them, but they, like Nancy Drew, have been sanitized and modernized. The pony cart, which I envied, disappeared and was replaced by a car. Language was changed to reflect more of a frame of reference for today’s kids. The difficult to read and understand language spoken by Dinah, the cook, and Sam, her husband and the Bobbsey’s handy man, underwent the most changes, and I’m really sorry about that. Their language, rich in metaphors and colloquialisms, has become flat, the same as every other character in the book. They have lost their individuality.
I went through a few of my Bobbsey Twin books and found some Dinah speak. Maybe today’s kids would have trouble deciphering what she is saying, but I don’t remember ever having any problems understanding her. Maybe her language was too ethnic so it had to be rewritten to reflect today’s social standards. The Dinah and Sam I knew and loved are gone.
A sanitized version of Huck Finn will be released next month.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: Bobbsey Twins, books, no school day, Snow, Winter storm
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
January 12, 2011 at 4:58 pm
This is another post to keep for the eventual Coffee book. So many great lines. And I admit, I never read the twins; my sister’s did; I was totally immersed in the Hardy Boys. In fact I had read each book three or four times. I even fell in love with a Lake in Maine many years later because of the wood boat which was exactly what the Hardy Boys piloted when chasing for clues by water. Social Standards aren’t that bad but yes, books of old won’t appear as the original writer intended which is sad. Means getting the real thing at a yard sale. I bought Nancy Drew books that way a time back for my G daughter. Now what’s more important is setting a social standard for gun ownership. I say invoke the UN resolution on gun enforcement as all other countries that do or did don’t have their little 9 year olds shot going to the store.
January 12, 2011 at 5:39 pm
A sanitized Huck Finn. Why even bother having the kids read it? What lessons will they take away from it and how will they gauge how far we’ve come? They cleaned up the Bobbsey Twins? Good Lord, I didn’t even realize they needed cleaning! It didn’t come much squeakier clean than that! Someone please save us from the language police.
January 12, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Erin,
They cleaned up Dinah’s language so it was a more proper English, not, “Farming! Ha!ha! Dat I do like. Used to farm all time home in Virginie!” the maid declared. “And I like it fust-rate! Dinah’ll go and hoe de corn and” (side to Bert) “steal de watermelons!” That was far too racist according to the editors.
Huck Finn will loose the “n” word and some others I don’t remember.
January 12, 2011 at 9:59 pm
Z&Me,
I too read The Hardy Boys around the same time I read Nancy Drew. They were really a lot alike.
I hate saying it, but I so think some books outlive their audiences who have come to speak an entirely different English language so they have trouble understanding the English as it was used before them. Now after saying that, I don’t think it right to change the language of books. Nope!
January 12, 2011 at 5:36 pm
The books were written (and re-written) by Edward Stratemeyer, an American publisher and writer.
He wrote The Rover Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, along with countless others.
I remember the few Tom Swift books I’d read in the 50’s to be quite different than those written so much earlier.
I was never a big fan of any of these series’ . I favored the biography/historical Landmark & Signature books. I’ve even picked up (more than) a few of them at garage sales and flea markets. Not too historically accurate, but great reads for kids.
January 12, 2011 at 10:04 pm
John,
I did know they were written by the same person, but I didn’t find out until I was an adult, but I should have realized because Nancy and the Hardy Boys are much alike.
I loved historical novels as well. Books were there for me to devour.
January 12, 2011 at 10:15 pm
Re: Huck Finn
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-11-2011/mark-twain-controversy?xrs=eml_tds
January 13, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Thanks, John!!!
January 13, 2011 at 7:45 am
When I was in grade school, one of my teachers favored the poems of James Whitcomb Riley (The Hoosier Poet) and would read them to the class. My favorite was “Little Orphant [sic] Annie” which he read to his classes at Halloween. Riley’s poems are written in nineteenth century Hoosier dialect, and therefore somewhat difficult to read. Sadly, my grandchildren had never heard of Mr. Riley, so I introduced them to his wonderful poems. They really enjoyed them when I read them, but found them difficult to read on their own. When you wrote about the Bobbsey Twins, I was reminded of the Riley Poems. BTW, I too bemoan the changes made to Huck Finn!
January 13, 2011 at 10:23 am
Rita,
You may find this CD to your liking:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/hillsanne
Anne’s a folksinger living in Pennsylvania with 2 dozen CDs to her credit. She’s been performing for over 30 years and is married to Mark Moss, editor of the venerable folk music magazine, Sing Out! .
January 13, 2011 at 7:47 pm
That is great, John. I wasn’t aware anything like that even existed. Thank you!
January 13, 2011 at 6:28 pm
Rita,
Your teacher probably helped explain the dialect to you. I remember trying to help my sophomores understand the language of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.In the beginning I had to stop every few lines. One of my students even asked why Shakespeare didn’t use English. That same student wrote on the top of one of his tests (well into the play) “Mercy Ho”. It was a struggle but they got it.
I have this how dare they mentality about Huck Finn. I can only imagine what Mark Twain would have had to say.
January 13, 2011 at 7:47 pm
To answer your question, Kat, this is from an article I recently read in USA TODAY:
“Twain himself did not take kindly to editing, Hirst says. When he discovered a printer had made punctuation changes to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, he wrote that he had “given orders for the typesetter to be shot without giving him time to pray.”
January 13, 2011 at 10:39 am
Hi Kat,
I just reread The Bobbsey Twins. They came as a complete collection on Kindle and the edition is public domain so not edited for modern sensitivities. I remember thinking it would definitely not be suitable for today’s children. Too many touchy things to explain like why it was acceptable for parents to beat their children or why Flossie was always careful to keep her black doll separate from her white dolls although they were all family. I chuckled a bit at those, though, because it was probably radical then to spare the rod or have a black doll. 🙂
I am buried in snow up here. It’s windy and cold but sunny so maybe some will melt. Maybe.
Have a great day.
January 13, 2011 at 6:33 pm
Hi Caryn,
I didn’t bother to get dressed today as my leg hurt and outside had little appeal. I did manage to get locked out of the house again when I went to get the paper. Something is weird with the outside door lock. This afternoon I decided not to tempt fate and didn’t go across the street to get the mail.
I know exactly what you mean about the language and social sensibilities in The Bobbsey Twins, but I think of the stories as part of our literary history which reflects the time in which it was written. I don’t know how you explain that to kids or if you just don’t expose them to the novels.
January 13, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Cold again over here today, but it will only last a day or so. Already on Saturday the temps will be above 32F and on Sunday and Monday it will rain again. We´re having November weather now 🙂 🙂
I´ve never heard about those twins, We had another couple of twins here that solved mysteries like Nancy Drew. I loved those books because they were hilariously funny too 🙂
I really don´t like when they modernize old books!!! For a reason I don´t understand they assume that kids today are a bit stupid and can´t figure out things, like the way they spoke back then, for themselves.
Have a great day now!
Christer.
January 13, 2011 at 2:05 pm
Christer,
My grand-daughters, Maja & Cecilia, have the Flicka, Ricka and Dicka & Snip, Snap and Snur books. Some in Swedish, some in English.
But their favorites so far are the Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel. They’re an easy read.
January 14, 2011 at 12:26 pm
🙂 :-)I do remember the Snip, Snap and Snut book 🙂
January 13, 2011 at 6:35 pm
Christer,
Cold here too and really cold tonight and the next few days.
They are modernizing to remove offensive language or archaic language. Twain would be an unhappy man if he knew what was happening. He was anti-slavery which is reflected in the book but will disappear.
January 13, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Enid Blyton – chastised because of the content of the Noddy books, but generations grew up enjoying The Famous Five, The Adventure series, The Secret Seven. Her books were part of the wonderful childhood trilogy that included Billy Bunter (Frank Richards) and Just William (Richmal Crompton)
Blyton’s books are considered incorrect and ignored by institutions such as the BBC – sanitized, censored, disregarded – what a shame
January 13, 2011 at 6:38 pm
My Dear Hedley,
I don’t know the author you mention and have never heard of the books, but by the sound of your comment, some of the same criticisms about language and incorrectness are heaped on series like the original Bobbsey Twins. They have already been sanitized.
January 13, 2011 at 9:51 pm
Rita,
Wonderful! It is sort of what I expected Twain might say though that was a mere punctuation change. I can’t imagine what else he’d say in reaction to whole word changes.
January 15, 2011 at 4:52 pm
We certainly do seem to be moving our heritage to the ditch. Its sad in many ways and I don’t understand a bit of it. Our loss, though, are not as great as our kids will be, as we are disposing of their aids to imagination.
Too bad.
Carl
January 16, 2011 at 10:33 am
Carl,
I so much agree about kids losing their imagination. As little kids they play with inanimate objects like trucks and stuff which they animate. When they get older, the electronic stuff takes over-that’s sad.