Parents Be Warned
We listened to this book on audio CD during the summer when we drove back and forth to swimming lessons. My 6y8m (between Kinder & 1st grade) son really enjoyed the story. So did I - until it was almost over and Ms. Blume just about blew the lid off the Santa Claus tradition. I thought it was hugely irresponsible as an author to not consider that many of her readers might still believe. As a parent I was torn. If I let the CD play I might have some explaining to do. But if I turned the CD off I definitely would have to explain my actions. So I let it play and gripped the steering wheel tight. In the end I "fudged" some comment about some people not being good enough to get visits from Santa and that was enough. Otherwise, it was a great story that my son could really relate to because the main character, Fudge, is just about his age and has a lot of equally silly thoughts.
Stupidly after the almost tragic ending of Superfudge, we checked out Doublefudge from the library and listened to that on audio CD too. Again, the story was going along swimmingly and we had lots of chuckles. Fudge was obsessed with money and my 6y8m son is quite the money magnet. My kid is going to put himself through college with the money he finds near store checkouts (he has to lay on his belly and have no fear of dust bunnies...but it's all in a day's work). My son also had a summer goal to play Monopoly (not the junior version), which Fudge also mentioned in the story. And surely Ms. Blume wouldn't play so fast and loose with any other childhood traditions - right? WRONG! The Tooth Fairy is exposed in this story. Thankfully we had just arrived at the swimming pool so I turned down the volume and when we got back in the car I slyly hit the fast forward button a bit before we started listening again.