The New York Times Guide to the Best Children's Videos

Informationen zum Autor Kids First! is the author of The New York Times Guide to the Best Children's Videos, a Simon & Schuster book. Klappentext A team of family experts and professionals provides a clear summary reviews of more than 1!000 videos! listed by viewing age and category! as recommended by child development specialists. Leseprobe Chapter One: TV for Girls Jan Benzel My daughter Julia quickly discovered a great advantage of learning to read: it allowed her to decipher the television schedule. Let me stop right here and say for the record that I began parenthood as one of those sanctimonious mothers whose personal goal it was to lower the national TV-watching average among children -- now something like three hours a day -- by turning in a paltry few hours a week for our family. We'd finger-paint! Bake! Read the classics! Go camping! I soon realized there were big problems with that approach. First, as the parent who walked into a room and turned the TV off, I was very unpopular. Second, TV -- and video -- have some practical applications from a parent's point of view: Appeasing children left under protest with a new baby-sitter. Distracting children while parents gobble down dinner. Allowing an exhausted parent to take a Saturday afternoon nap (for this, Mary Poppins, at 139 spellbinding minutes, is recommended). And sometimes kids, like adults, just need to escape, cool out, calm down, be entertained. Then there's the peer-pressure argument. Other kids watch TV. I still remember my own childhood indignity of not knowing the ins and outs of Batman when other third-graders were dissecting the previous night's episode over their peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. Did I want my daughters to grow up feeling geeky? Lastly, I didn't enjoy the role of hypocrite. I like TV myself. Batman notwithstanding, I watched television, as much as my parents would allow, and I turned out okay. It's a huge force in American culture. To forbid TV watching in a household is something like ignoring a two-ton elephant sitting in the middle of your living room. Better to approach it with intelligence and care. The forbidden becomes all the more desirable. Fortunately, there's more good programming than ever for children, and it can open up all sorts of windows on the world. There's public television's rich lineup, from Sesame Street through Bill Nye the Science Guy; Nickelodeon's Nick Jr.; Steven Spielberg's Tiny Toon Adventures, new animation in the classic mode set to vintage rock and roll or symphonic music, with layers of humor to reward different ages; the Disney Channel (despite its endless self-promotions); the nature shows on the Discovery Channel. And once in a while, the networks offer an appealing show, although they've seen their Saturday morning stronghold slip away as Fox, WB, and the cable channels gather steam. But I still feel some consternation, even when we've narrowed the choice of programs to the best among the flowering proliferation of shows. When Julia, who is six years old, reads the TV listings, excitedly perusing the possibilities for her precious hour of screen time (not on school nights, reminds her Sanctimonious Mom), these are the names she sees: Winnie the Pooh, Arthur, Rocko's Modern Life, Doug, Charlie Brown, Barney (anathema to anyone over three), and Wishbone. Not so different from what I saw when I devoured TV Guide, that bible to the first generation of TV kids: Popeye, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Daffy Duck, Mickey Mouse, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Dennis the Menace, and Leave it to Beaver. Then and now, it's a boys' club. Yes, an occasional female character appears on some of these programs, but almost always she's Olive Oyl to Popeye, Lucy to Charlie Brown. Females get second billing if they have a part ...

Klappentext
A team of family experts and professionals provides a clear summary reviews of more than 1,000 videos, listed by viewing age and category, as recommended by child development specialists.

Zusammenfassung
The only guide you'll need for choosing the best videos -- and CD-ROMS -- for your family.
INCLUDES:
More than 1000 entries of kid-tested and adult-approved videos currently available.
Listings organized by age -- from infancy to adolescence -- as recommended by child development specialists.
A wide range of categories with special attention to gender and ethnicity: Educatioinal/Instructional; Fairy Tales; Family Literature and Myth; Special Interest; Foreign Language; Holiday; Music; How-To; and Nature.
Review ratings in a clear, easy-to-read format.
Evaluations by panels of adults and children.
Outstanding programs from independents and major studios.
Ordering information, running times, and suggested retail prices.
Evaluations of more than 100 CD-ROMs
500 recommended feature films for the family...and more!

Leseprobe
Chapter One: TV for Girls

Jan Benzel

My daughter Julia quickly discovered a great advantage of learning to read: it allowed her to decipher the television schedule.

Let me stop right here and say for the record that I began parenthood as one of those sanctimonious mothers whose personal goal it was to lower the national TV-watching average among children -- now something like three hours a day -- by turning in a paltry few hours a week for our family. We'd finger-paint! Bake! Read the classics! Go camping!

I soon realized there were big problems with that approach. First, as the parent who walked into a room and turned the TV off, I was very unpopular.

Second, TV -- and video -- have some practical applications from a parent's point of view: Appeasing children left under protest with a new baby-sitter. Distracting children while parents gobble down dinner. Allowing an exhausted parent to take a Saturday afternoon nap (for this, Mary Poppins, at 139 spellbinding minutes, is recommended). And sometimes kids, like adults, just need to escape, cool out, calm down, be entertained.

Then there's the peer-pressure argument. Other kids watch TV. I still remember my own childhood indignity of not knowing the ins and outs of Batman when other third-graders were dissecting the previous night's episode over their peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. Did I want my daughters to grow up feeling geeky?

Lastly, I didn't enjoy the role of hypocrite. I like TV myself. Batman notwithstanding, I watched television, as much as my parents would allow, and I turned out okay. It's a huge force in American culture. To forbid TV watching in a household is something like ignoring a two-ton elephant sitting in the middle of your living room. Better to approach it with intelligence and care. The forbidden becomes all the more desirable. Fortunately, there's more good programming than ever for children, and it can open up all sorts of windows on the world.

There's public television's rich lineup, from Sesame Street through Bill Nye the Science Guy; Nickelodeon's Nick Jr.; Steven Spielberg's Tiny Toon Adventures, new animation in the classic mode set to vintage rock and roll or symphonic music, with layers of humor to reward different ages; the Disney Channel (despite its endless self-promotions); the nature shows on the Discovery Channel. And once in a while, the networks offer an appealing show, although they've seen their Saturday morning stronghold slip away as Fox, WB, and the cable channels gather steam.

But I still feel some consternation, even when we've narrowed the choice of programs to the best among the flowering proliferation of shows.

When Julia, who is six years old, reads the TV listings, excitedly perusing the possibilities for her precious hour of screen time (not on school nights, reminds her Sanctimonious Mom), these are the names she sees: Winnie the Pooh, Arthur,…

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