Hoarding is Not Collection Development
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Drugs for the kids
Focus on Cocaine and Crack
Shulman
1990
Drug information for the kids is always a place ripe with ALB possibilities. Maybe it is the overly cheery design or cartoons, but the whole thing just doesn’t work for me. Regardless, I have a real problem with old stuff whenever we are talking about medical related topics. Yes, this is just as important for the youth materials as well and 1990 is too old. Most of the kids who need this material (and I am speaking on my library experience only) has been middle school and or high school and this looks too “young” for my target market.
Mary
Drug education for the kids is one big topics on this site. Here are some old posts:
Latawnya the Naughty Horse Learns to Say No to Drugs! (This one is an all time favorite for this site!)
Is it just me, or does this book make cocaine sound pretty cool? Referencing Thomas Edison and telling kids it’s like riding a roller coaster… I wonder if the publisher has a side line in the drug importation racket!
Francesca is right – like a roller coaster? Cure-all? Doctor-recommended? Awesome.
I do have to agree with Francesca—If it made Thomas Edison happy, I think everybody could use some! How ghastly!!
Caffeine? I, apparently, missed the school yard espresso pushers as a kid.
I think the pages that were excerpted unfairly bias our view of the book. Cocaine was widely touted/used at that time, so it is not inaccurate history. I suspect the rest of the book explains why it is now a controlled substance, its dangerous effects, addictiveness, so on. I’m actually willing to give this book some credit for trying to be more than just pure “reefer madness” style warnings (even if justified here) with absolutely nothing else. There’s a fascinating history behind many things on the CSA and showing that it was once legal and why it became criminalized might help get the message across better to readers who ask deeper questions.
This just seems like a lot of information for an elementary-age book that seems like it’s going for a simple “say no to drugs” message.
I remember this book. I also remember 5th grade DARE classes, and thinking “huh. So, THAT’s what the appeal of drugs is. They actually sound… intriguing.”