Underwear?

"It's so soft," she heard the girl saying.

Twyla* turned to see what the girl was looking at.

"The little girl was touching the underwear on the cover of that book," Twyla told me.

"Underwear on the book? What book is that?" I asked.

"BEAR IN UNDERWEAR," she said. "There's a book about a bear who finds some underwear in the forest. On the cover the bear is wearing underwear and they made it out of fabric. She was touching it and saying it was soft."

"Wait a minute, a bear finds underwear?"

"Yeah, here, I'll show you." Twyla retrieved the book.

         

I read the book. A wide-eyed bear and his friends are playing in the forest. The bear gets separated from the group and finds a backpack. He picks it up and puts the backpack on his back, without seeing what's in it. He meets up with his friends who ask him what's in the backpack. The bear doesn't know, he said he's afraid to open it. His friends encourage him to open it. What's inside? Underwear. Lots and lots of underwear in various colors and sizes. He tries all of them on until he finds a pair that is just right for him - the tighty-whiteys he's pictured in on the cover.

Okay, a couple of things that are just kind of...odd. The bear finds a backpack in the forest...an abandoned, fully packed backpack (can anyone say "Homeland Security"?). He doesn't want to open it (this may be the only sensible thing in the book). His friends coax him into opening the backpack. It's full of underwear (ick). They call them "tighty-whiteys" (ick again).

I get that little kids (to whom this book is geared) are sometimes focused on underwear. AND...this is just a little creepy. Not the book I would choose for my kids.

Neither would Twyla.

*Not her real name.

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