A New Shock in the Kiddie Lit World

We took our weekly trip to the library the other day. I'm encouraging Keona to pick out his own books and in he was trolling down the isles throwing books in the basket in his own discriminating method at a pretty good clip. I noticed one go in about a fire truck which is the topic of the week at school, so that's can only be a good thing, right? Well, hold on to your fire pole because this book isn't just about fire trucks. "Fire! Fire!" Said Mrs. McGuire by Bill Martin , Jr. (Apparently this is a re-do of one written by his father in the 60s) First, it was your typical women can do anything book; the message was loud and clear which is fine. Anyone doing anything important in this book was a woman. A good lesson for my budding young stallions. They will respect the women of the early 21st century. However, I was taken aback by the appearance of Mrs. Votter, who needed water. She appears in a very short, red tank-top dress and stiletto heels while all the male fire fighters are completely useless as they leer at her like a bunch of addlepated teenagers. I mean really, is this the kind of thing you want to read to your 4 year old? I guess they are trying to entertain the reading fathers in kiddie lit because apparently these days they can't put aside their own entertainment needs long enough to read to their children!? Give me a break! This one is going back, unread.