For the last week or so, instead of reading the normal picture book type of books that we normally read to the kids before bed, I’ve been reading them a chapter from Judy Blume’s book Superfudge
I have a huge attachment to both this and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. They were two of the very first chapter books that I read on my own. My 1st grade teacher actually had to go into the school library and tell the librarian to quit chasing me out of the older kid section because I was supposed to be reading at that level. Take that librarian!
I’ve read the each of those books probably close to five or so times each over the few years following that so I know them fairly well despite not having read them at all for around 25 years. Man I’m getting old.
Anyway, I was skimming ahead on a chapter because I know it talks about Santa and I wanted to see how much they revealed about the big guy. They spill the beans so now I have to decide whether to skip the chapter, censor the section, read it and deal with Geetle’s million questions, or “accidentally” lose the book for a while. I’ll talk about that some other day.
What shocked me was this part. Peter, after being pestered by Fudge, writes a letter to Santa. Here’s his letter:
Dear Santa,
Please bring me one or more of the following items. A clock-radio, a remote-controlled model airplane, a laptop computer, an MP3 player and six CD’s.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Peter W. Hatcher
No big deal, right? That sounds like a reasonable request for a 6th grader.
Except the book was published in 1980. What kind of prognostication voodoo is that Judy Blume up to?
It looks like somewhere along the way, the contents of that letter were ‘modernized.’ We have a few of the really small Dr. Seuss books for babies. They are like 4″ squares. I’ve noticed that they have a tendency to change a lot of “he” to “she” to modernize the books.
Whatever. I don’t really care one way or the other, especially if the author made the decision, but it is odd to read a book again that you know you read 25 years prior and hear mentions of technology that were not around at the time you know you originally read the book. Just odd.
What I want to know is what the original contents of that letter were and are they so out of date that kids today wouldn’t be able to relate? Does anybody have an old copy of the book sitting around? The letter is in Chapter 10 – Santa Who? Let me know in the comments sand I’ll give you a virtual high five.
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Today happens to be your lucky day Mike, as I happen to have a super-old copy of “Superfudge”.
The original letter reads:
“Dear Santa,
Please bring me one or more of the following items. A clock-radio, a pocket calculator, a stereo for my room, six albums, and a radio-controlled model airplane.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Peter W. Hatcher”
Yeah, I can kind of see why they changed it. You can get a pocket calculator for like a dollar now, so that’s no big thrill. . A stereo doesn’t sound so bad to me, but then again, I was a kid in the age of CD’s, not MP3′s.
He ends up getting the calculator and clock-radio, plus a gift certificate for two albums. When I read that as a kid I thought those must have been a pretty crappy Christmas presents but as an adult I realize that those things were probably akin to getting and iPod and a Nintendo DS or something.
I have a copy in my classroom (unless a student is reading it). Now I want to check out what Peter wanted. I will get back to you.
-Your cousin, Amanda
Disregard my comment. I didn’t read the other comment!
Thanks Rachel. I just read another sentence where he mentions that his favorite channels are Nickelodean and Cartoon Network. I’m sure those are changes, too. It seems silly to me to make those changes but as long as the author approves, they don’t bother me either.
But now I want to go back and see how many things didn’t change to make them more timely. For example, I know that in Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing, Peter takes Fudge to the park. I can’t imagine many 4th graders in this day and age being allowed to take their younger than kindergarten brother out to the park in downtown New York without his parents.
Those are two of my favorite books as well. A teacher read them aloud to us in Elementary School.
I don’t like the modernization of those things, but I understand why they did it. Meh!
You are welcome! Those ARE changes, although I can’t ever remember Peter talking about television in the original edition, so I’ve no idea what they changed. It seems silly to me too, but I guess I get it.