Good Little, Bad Little Girl by Esther Wilkin

Between the ages of two and six, I was pretty much every parent’s worst nightmare. I was indiscriminately aggressive, biting my classmates on the cheek, throwing elaborate temper tantrums at every possible opportunity, and generally terrorizing my peers.

My mom definitely spent a lot of time brainstorming unique approaches to sidestepping my wrath, so when my attachment to television became a problem, she simply lugged the TV to the basement and told me it was broken. To seek revenge, I smeared boogers on the wall, but more importantly, I spent a lot more time reading picture books. I was obsessed with Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein. My mom was insistent upon wholesome titles and she had an aversion to any kind of Disney character.

Her diligent curation of media makes the presence of one particular book an oddity. Good Little, Bad Little Girl is recognizable as a Little Golden Book, with its shiny spine and back cover crowded with characters and the admission, in tiny font, that it is copyrighted by Walt Disney Productions. You may be more familiar with Little Golden Books’ more popular titles, including The Poky Little Puppy, The Saggy Baggy Elephant, and Scuffy the Tugboat. Most of the Little Golden Books focus on woodland creatures or various automobiles clumsily grappling with the introduction of imposed human morals. Good Little Girl, Bad Little Girl isn’t so different, except that our protagonist is a tiny human girl adjusting to the pressures of an oppressive Victorian ideal.

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