The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

This book by Kate DiCamillo makes you shudder in horror at the depths to which children’s literature has fallen. It is a really bad book. The dialogue makes you cringe. The characters are caricatures. Not only is it poorly written, but the message – that you deserve whatever horrors come upon you in life, because it means you’re not grateful enough – is truly terrifying. Basically it’s the story of a toy rabbit who doesn’t appreciate his owner enough, so gets tossed from one owner to another until his spirit is utterly broken. At that point, his original owner turns up again and he is therefore chastened and grateful. If anyone did give this book to a child, they’d deserve to have DOCS called up on them. Of course, all you need to do is read the back cover. It’s written by the same woman who wrote a story about a town being saved by a dog – Because of Winn-Dixie. Why, why, why do books like this get published? Let me say that this edition was beautifully illustrated which is why the person bought it and gave it to me (without reading it, I’m sure). I really hope that if any parent does the same, they put it away after the first misguided reading of the first terrible sentence.