The Stupids Have a Ball

I didn't react as negatively to this book as I had expected to by hearing other people talk about it. The Stupids Have a Ball by Harry Allard and James Marshall is a book about a family called the Stupids and their various "stupid" ways of going about life. I was really surprised to find out that one of my favorite books from my childhood was written by these authors called Ms. Nelson is Missing. I recognized the illustrations from this book and looked at the author description to see if I had read any of their other books. Although I can see where the negativity and the controversy comes from, I didn't really mind the book. I probably wouldn't read it to young kids or bring it to my classroom, mostly because "stupid" just isn't a nice word to use, but for older kids I think as long as it's taken in stride, it's not necessarily a bad thing. A talk could go along with it such as "just because the book calls people Stupid does not mean that it's okay for you to do that". Kid's hear negative words everywhere and censoring them from this book won't prohibit the word stupid from entering their vocabulary. Aside from the controversy, I enjoyed the book. I thought it was funny and the illustrations reminded me of that favorite book from my childhood. It's not award winning but it's one that would probably make kids laugh. At a high cost many believe, but I'm not sure I agree.