Children's books, yes! Marketing Ploys, no!

Sorry for the tardy post, but yesterday was a flurry of fun with a visit from one of my Swiss relatives!
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As a teacher who has been declared old enough to be in charge of large groups of “kiddoes,” I now feel qualified to utter the following platitude:

You know, back in the day when I was a kid, life was AWESOME.

I remember days spent hopping after the frogs that lived in my mom’s oversized geraniums, doodling on large refrigerator-sized boxes to transform them into rocket ships, and walking to the local park where I’d swing, slide, or build forts to my heart’s content.

My brother and I loved to be outdoors all summer -- swimming, biking, running around, and inventing games as kids do. The best vacations were to Yosemite or Lake Tahoe/Truckee River where we’d jump out of the boat, the car, or off the path to go explore. I had my rock/interesting stick/feather collections to add to and my brother liked to look at all the bugs/fish we could find in the water. Even while not on vacation, just about every day was filled with something fun, because our neighborhood was full of kids ready to play.

And, in those hot summer days, when I was tired but it wasn’t dark enough to come inside yet, I could climb up the crepe myrtle tree out in the front yard and read or even just lazily watch the clouds with their funny shapes roll by. (Occasionally, I would also hide in the branches and try to scare people walking by. But that’s not a story my mother likes me to tell…)

In other words, the great big world in all its natural, free abundance was my playground.

I didn’t realize my parents weren’t rich and I only mildly cared that my brother and I didn’t have the things other kids had like Nintendo, but I do realize looking back that I was blissfully happy as I flew around my block, ready for whatever adventure was coming next.

Fast-forward twenty or so years and I’m witnessing a totally different picture of childhood. This article, for example, the Eloise Plaza Room, makes me feel that we’ve put a price on imagination.

My fun as a child (and that of my childhood compatriots) cost little to no money, but kids can be satisfied with just about anything that encourages their imagination. Heck, I could spend hours with an old Folgers coffee can filled to the brim with water and a paintbrush, creating masterpieces that evaporated almost as quickly as I could splash them onto the cement.

So. That begs the question:

Q: What would any child do in a room devoted to Eloise that cost $995 a night and was covered in pink wallpaper?

A: Nothing that couldn’t be done in her own house for waaaayyyy less than $995/night if she only had the right mindset.

Granted, for the 5% or so of little girls whose parents could afford the room and who like this book series (I liked the books but not as much as the Madeline series), Betsey Johnson has created a wonderland of fun. But why did anyone feel the need to create this room?

Why can’t we be satisfied with our own imaginations anymore?

I think of the little kids I coached on the swim team or my current students’ stories of their childhoods and a few key words keep popping up:

-- Structured Play
-- Scheduled Time
-- Indoors Only
-- Expensive, Interactive Toys

Now these revelations are nothing new – kids don’t go outside anymore, they don’t know what “imagination” means if it doesn’t come with an instruction manual, and they are worried about college by the time they are in 3rd grade. I get it. The world is sadly changing and their lives reflect the frenetic pace of their over-worked parents.

But my issue with this new suite is that children’s books are more precious than just another marketing ploy. The true joy of a children’s book is that most of them can be understood on a fundamental level – through pictures, through a reader’s voice, and through one’s own flights of fancies while listening to the words – not through the purchase of additional things to enhance the experience.

Reading a book to a child is a tangible act of love, a sign that for the next few minutes, you are excited about taking them on a trip to a place that may be richly familiar or expressively new and sharing this experience with them over and over again every time you turn the page.

Turning that vision into a reality almost cheapens the experience. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the Harry Potter movies, for example, and have seen most of them in the theaters. However, the difference between a film adaptation and an expensive New York suite can be found in my favorite memory from childhood: visiting my local library and discovering every part of the world tucked away in the stacks, just for me.

I can live with any adaptation of a child’s book that enhances the experience so long as it accessible to all (most books that become films can be found at libraries). But when books (and their attached expensive amusement parks / destination vacations) become another product, another status symbol of parents’ ability to indulge their child’s every whim, it depresses me because we are descending a slippery slope.

What happens when a girl finds the Eloise books, loves them, and turns to the back flap only to discover that-- thanks to those clever publishers and the Plaza marketing team -- the real suite exists just a short plane ride away? Did she even know she needed that visit before that moment? No, but now those adults have created a huge temptation for this child, when before she would simply act out the books in her room, satisfied that she was queen of her Plaza house.
But no amount of begging will ever get her there if her parents don’t have the money so she’ll never know if her vision of the place is as good as the reality. Will she trust her own imaginative play (Free! Fun!) or will she start saving her allowance so she can see the “real thing” as imagined by grownups ($995! Parental angst!), thus commodifying the experience? What happens when she goes to read another book and the same marketing ploy occurs? What then? What will this girl think about books then and her ability to live in their world?

Perhaps it is an exaggerated vision of this new twist on an old marketing strategy, but I guess that’s what one can expect from someone who had a great childhood, complete without the suite. I only wish today’s kids could have the same simple pleasures but they may be a generation who wouldn’t even know what to do with some water and a paintbrush. And, so, Eloise, the only thing I wish you (and the Plaza) would have charged in your books was my imagination, not my credit card, too. But I guess it’s too late for that. Only time and paying customers will be able to tell whether this trend continues.