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| Hearsay: |
The ridiculous pageant known as airport security, coupled with the apparently jelly-spined nerves of Scholastic publishing types, has killed a terror manual Robert Munsch had planned to use to train a hardened army of suicide bombing eight year-olds. This was an underpants level of emergency here, people. We’re at two minutes to midnight! Thank god for the quick thinking of our society’s censors. They, and only they, are fully aware how stupid our children, and their parents who are unable to provide even a modicum of context, are. I feel like singing our national anthem. Which one is it again?
“We were going to do a story on a little girl who smuggles all these dolls onto a plane, but then that thing happened in Detroit,” said Munsch. “Scholastic calls me up in a panic saying, ‘Hold everything, that kid couldn’t smuggle anything onto the plane, she’s lucky to get onto the plane herself.’ ”
Munsch said he had no problem with the change, and even chuckled about the coincidence of a story of his clashing with a real-life situation. He is now in talks with the publisher on his next project.
Diane Kerner, director of publishing for Scholastic Canada, said the book will be postponed for “a bit.”
“A lot of kids can’t take a bag on an airplane right now,” she said. “We have a lot of stories of Bob’s in play at any given time … I’ve got four complete binders – big binders – in my office full of the stories he’s sent me … so when something seems like it might not be right at this exact moment, we’ve got a lot of others to choose from.”
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January 20th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Too bizarre. What about the story he wrote about the girl who flies to Kapuskasing (Where Is Gah-Ning) by holding onto helium filled balloons. Isn’t that against air traffic regulations or something? Wouldn’t it pose a flight hazard? I don’t think kids are allowed to do that. Better recall the book.
January 20th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
I guess “Angela’s Airplane” is on the naughty list too. I had some fun putting that one in context for my kid.
January 23rd, 2010 at 1:25 am
Ha! This is a perfect time to mention my FAVORITE reviewer at epinions.com. Bilbopooh, take it away!
“Angela’s Airplane Celebrates an Accidental Hi-jacking”
“The back cover flap indicates that Munsch created this story on the spot at a daycare. I can understand that being the case, and in that context, the story isn’t quite so ridiculous. But it doesn’t seem like a tale that should then have been published as a book. First and foremost, if a five-year-old is capable of getting into an airplane and flying it down the runway, that’s a major security issue, which I have trouble finding too funny in light of September 11th. If it’s that easy for a kindergartener, surely it would be pretty simple for a terrorist as well.
Moreover, by the end of the book, while Angela emerges from the ordeal unharmed, she completely destroys the plane. That’s one awfully big hunk of useless equipment. Is she going to spend the rest of her childhood selling lemonade to start paying the airport back for the damages she caused? The story seems to indicate a “no big deal” attitude on the part of everyone at the airport, but the demolished airplane is a very big deal.”