It's easy to go through kids' books at a bookstore or used book outlet and find UFO books. You can also find kids' books about the Bible, ghosts, or any other belief adults want to indoctrinate kids into. You can teach them virtually anything. Whether or not they'll believe as adults what they've been taught is something else, but there's plenty out there once they grow up to reinforce those childish beliefs.
After going through my shelves I've come up with some UFO items specifically for kids.
Fiction is a big market. You stick a spaceship or flying saucer on a cover and it'll get a kid's attention. Stick an alien on there and you double your chances the kid will beg mom to buy it. The Spooksville series by Christopher Pike was very popular a few years ago, if popularity is measured by how many of the series I find used. I've seen less of the Mike Gonzo books, but the cover on this particular book is very eye-catching and it probably sold very well. Both of these books are published by Pocket Books under the juvenile imprint of Minstrel Books.
Even Nancy Drew got in on the act. I have two editions of this book. One shows the saucer and the other just a light on the horizon. I chose this one to show you because of the saucer.
The Invaders was a popular TV series in the 1960s, and the Three Investigators was a popular juvenile detective series. This particular Three Investigators edition was published in the late 1970s, and shows the influence of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind in its depiction of the UFO.
But those books are marketed as fiction. There are books that purport to tell facts. The Isaac Asimov book is, as you'd expect, pretty much a book debunking UFOs. Asimov was not a believer. I've found that UFO "facts" are in the eye of the beholder. What seems fact to one person can easily be perceived as fiction to another.
Then there are those pesky aliens again. The stories of little gray men pulling people into spaceships and examining them has become part of our culture. Although this book looks like it's about "real" monsters from outer space, the design is mostly to draw the reader in to a carefully worded treatise on why such beliefs aren't real. The words "optical illusion" and even "hallucination" are there, which is a pretty good indicator the author isn't sympathetic with the alien agenda.
This isn't a book, but a package of valentines I found a few years ago. I don't know, but would you want to get a valentine that shows a big-eyed, insectlike alien and says, "I've got my eyes on you, valentine!" Brrr. Shudder.
That imagery repeats itself on this box of fruity snacks called Wildfruit UFOs. I saw the box and said, "OK, I'll bite." The snacks were good, too, and I hung onto the box.
More later. Ciao for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment