Storytime

One of the great joys in life is reading to my baby, but while we have stacks of books around the house, she has a select few that she wants to read over and over. It can get pretty boring, so I find myself deeply studying the details of every picture and getting increasingly disturbed by what I've found hidden on the pages of these supposedly innocuous picture books.

I'd like to share some of my discoveries with you.

Mama Bear's Secret

If you read "The Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist" once, you'd probably come away thinking it's just a sweet little tale to help allay any fears kids might have about visiting the dentist, but read it 50 or 60 times and you might pick up on some of Stan and Jan Berenstain's hidden clues about the Bear family's history.

Just look at Dr. Bearson's face as he invites Sister Bear to hop into the chair. I imagine it's the same come-hither look he gave to Mama Bear at the swinging key party he held years earlier at his Bear Country condo, about seven months, in fact, before Sister Bear was born.

That's right, I looked it up. The gestation period for bears is about seven to seven and a half months.

It all makes sense, because seven pages into "The Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist," Mama Bear gets a little nostalgic when Brother Bear teases Sister Bear that Dr. Bearson might yank out her loose tooth.

Mama Bear says with great knowing in her voice that "Dr. Bearson doesn't yank. He's very gentle and very careful."

And witness the sad, longing look she gives Dr. Bearson as they leave his office. She's obviously thinking about that drunken, honey-soaked night of passion, and maybe even pondering what could have been, as she heads back to her mundane existence in a treehouse on a sunny dirt road in Bear Country, and a lifeless marriage to a dumb, lazy husband who has the most difficult time giving up his vices in "The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food" and "The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV."

Dora and the Drifter

The Dora the Explorer series is great for toddlers. We learn essentials like the alphabet, numbers and colors, and a little Spanish, too.

The trouble with this independent little bi-lingual dynamo is not that she spends too much time with her monkey friend, Boots, who we know from recent news stories could turn on her at any moment and try to rip her face off, but that she's allowed to explore some pretty dangerous locales like jungles and forests with no adult supervision.

Fortunately for Dora and her absent family, run-ins with that sneaky Swiper the Fox aren't reason enough for social services to place her in protective custody. A foster home is the least of Dora's worries, though, if the events in "At the Carnival" are any indication of her safety.

In this story, Dora and Boots are on a quest to secure eight yellow tickets so they can win The Big Piñata, filled with toys and stickers and treats. It sounds innocent enough, except to complete the journey they must avoid being plied (I learned that word during the last Michael Jackson trial) with ice cream and cotton candy into compromising positions with an assortment of lurking carnies and drifters.

Just look at the sketchy guy leaning against the fence, lasciviously sipping his drink and scouting the scene for stray children he can coax into the dungeon he built under his dead grandma's house.

"Hey, little girl, I'll help you win the big piñata," he says. "You've just got to come with me to my van, where I've got a bunch of yellow tickets. The monkey will have to stay here, though. They'll rip your face off."

Bi-Curious George

The only reason H.A. Rey's Curious George would rip your face off is if he was curious about what was underneath. For that reason, George is a favorite at our house. We've read the inspirational compilation "Curious You, On Your Way!" hundreds of times and I like the old-timey, simple pictures. It's a nice reprieve from the super-bright illustrations in the Dora series and it's obvious Rey didn't have to censor himself to conform to today's mores and values. If he wanted to draw a bunch of people smoking pipes, and he apparently did, nobody cared.

I was surprised, however, to see that freedom extended to the depiction above of two gay sailors walking arm in arm (they appear to be missing hands) down a busy sidewalk in the middle of the day. I know it's New York, but still, this was way ahead of its time.

As they search for a motel room in which to explore their passions on their weekend pass, it's a good thing George seems distracted with other curiosities, because I think the military's don't ask, don't tell policy would throw him into a frenzy that would leave no face unripped off.