In the Night Kitchen is a controversial children's book due to it's illustrations of a nude little boy; however, I believe that it a completely apppropriate book for children. I believe that sensoring a book depicting a nude child is ridiculous and that elementary-aged children are old enough to handle it. Exposing children to the "truth" about how humans were created will only help deepen their knowledge about mankind. Nudity is a controversial topic, and I think that it has to be analyzed in a case-by-case manner. Extreme nudity and nudity of adults is probably not something I would want in books in my classroom, but I think it just depends on the book and how the nudity is being depicted. In this book I think that the child is naked because he gets really messy. It wouldn't make sense for him to keep his clothes on when he's swimming in milk and sitting in a cake! Overall, this book is definitely one I would feel comfortable having in my classroom.
Before class this week, I was not a big fan of this book. I did not think it was appropriate for children because of the nudity. However, after seeing the reaction of Jen’s son, I realized that children can look past the element of nudity and really enjoy the book. Seeing the book from a young child’s point of view made me realize that this book would be fine for children to read. I do think that it is up to the parents of children as to whether or not they would like their children to read the book. I am not sure if I would want this book in my classroom, but I do have a different perspective of the book now.
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