Bad for You: Exposing the War on Fun! - Softcover

Pyle, Kevin C.; Cunningham, Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805092897 ISBN 13: 9780805092899

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. BYR Paperbacks, 2014

Synopsis

SHOULD U.S. COMICS BE BANNED?

"SATANIC" HARRY POTTER BOOKS BURNT

PLAYGROUNDS POSE THREAT TO CHILDREN

TEXT-MAD YOUTH LOSING WRITING ABILITIES

CHILD SUSPENDED FOR BRANDISHING CHICKEN

SOCIAL WEBSITES HARM CHILDREN'S BRAINS

STUDENT ARRESTED FOR "PASSING GAS" AT SCHOOL

These are all real headlines screaming about the terrible stuff that's out there . . . stuff that's supposed to be BAD FOR YOU. But, honestly―is it?!

Bad for You asks this question and many more―and not just about the things that modern parents fear like violent video games, social media, and dirty hands. Stuff in this book goes back centuries―all the way to Plato (yeah, that one) and his worries over the new "technology" of his time: the written word! Kevin C. Pyle and Scott Cunningham cleverly expose the long-standing CAMPAIGN AGAINST FUN for what it really is: a bunch of anxious adults grasping at straws, ignoring scientific data, and blindly yearning for the good old days that never were. Bad for You presents the facts, figures, and a whole lot more―in eye-grabbing graphics―to debunk these myths and give kids the power to prove there's nothing wrong with having fun . . . or with being young.

About this title

About the Authors

Kevin C. Pyle is the author/illustrator of both graphic novels and non-fiction "docu-comics" on issues of social justice. In the early 90s he co-founded and edited the willfully obscure and unwieldy comic compendium "Hodags and Hodaddies." Shortly thereafter, Kevin began contributing and co-editing World War 3 Illustrated, America's longest-running radical comics anthology. Much of the work done for WW3 Illustrated was collected in his 2001 docu-comic, Lab U.S.A.: Illuminated Documents. A non-fiction comic investigation of clandestine racist and authoritarian science, Lab U.S.A. won the Silver Medal for Sequential Art from the Society of Illustrators. Kevin has done performance and installations based on the text that have been exhibited in the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Mass MOCA, and numerous gallery settings. His first graphic novel, Blindspot, was published in 2007 by Henry Holt Books for Young Readers. It was included in the Best American Comics 2008, edited by Lynda Barry. Katman, also with Henry Holt, was published in 2009 and named a YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) Great Graphic Novel for 2010. His third graphic novel, Take What You Can Carry, was published in March 2012, and he is currently working on a non-fiction docu-comic with Scott Cunningham called Bad for You, which is about the history of kid-centric moral panics in America.

Scott Cunningham has written kids’comics for DC, Archie, Nickelodeon Magazine and parodies for Mad. He is the author of Bad for You, along with Kevin C. Pyle. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, daughter, TEN cats and one dog. He thinks he has enough pets for now.

Reviews

Gr 8 Up–A well-researched docu-comic. Covering topics such as comics, games, technology, and play, the chapters begin with a historical perspective on each subject. The authors then go on to explain how time after time, as new pastimes develop, they gain in popularity with youth until they enter the public limelight and are deemed potentially harmful to children. For example, the section on games begins with a description of the earliest archaeological discovery of dice and includes a reference to the poet Horace, who warned of the negative impact on youth who gamble with dice. The chapter explores the evolution of games and describes instances of adults trying to protect children from their negative impact, including Scientific American cautioning parents about chess in the mid-19th century and the attempts to legislate against Dungeons and Dragons and video-arcade games in the 1980s. In an examination of the current controversy about video games being responsible for violent behavior, the authors use countless scientific studies and other research as well as court cases to expose the fallacy behind the fear. Black-and-white graphic panels illustrate the text succinctly and add humor. Resources and references are included, with a more extensive list of references supplied on the book's website. Pyle and Cunningham argue that under the guise of protecting children, adults have created a youth-phobic society, in which “fear of the new” is the overriding impulse. They attempt to expose this mind-set and encourage readers to think critically about what is supposedly bad for them. This book is funny, mind-boggling, entertaining, and completely educational. Make sure every teen gets a copy.–Ragan O'Malley, Saint Ann's School, Brooklyn, NYα(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Pyle and Cunningham’s dense, information-packed treatise on everything that lousy grown-ups have ever tried to ruin for kids takes off at a dead run through sections titled “Comics,” “Games,” “Technology,” “Play,” and “Thought.” These general headings encompass a great deal of subject matter and background, so readers will get a tour through the history of censorship and banning things, including some items that will seem ridiculous to contemporary readers, like fairy tales, chess, and the telegraph. The vast depth and span of their research is broken up by presenting many types of information in many different forms, including essays, maps, charts, and comic art, which tell several of the histories in Pyle’s rough, evocative style. The writers clearly fall on the side of fun and make little effort to present convincing counterarguments. They do, however, defend the good times with clear, rational claims and evidence, and even in the case of murkier issues, like the safety of playgrounds, they recognize the dangers and offset them with qualifying considerations, like healthy cognitive development. Grades 7-10. --Jesse Karp

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. BYR Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0805092897
• ISBN 13: 9780805092899
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 192
• Illustrator: Pyle Kevin C.