Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

There are plenty of specific items to be concerned about below that we could start with (e.g., a group of young girls looking at pornographic magazines), but the main problems are found when looking at the book from the top-level. This book leaves kids with a few core deceptive messages, messages that are all the more dangerous because they are so prevalent in our day. First, there is the message that Christianity is at best just one way to God. Margaret visits a Jewish temple and a church and comments that they really seemed the same to her. Second, the book sends the message that church services are something that kids won’t/can’t really understand. Every time Margaret visits a church, she doesn’t follow anything that is said or shown and just likes the sound of the music. Especially with her being in 6th grade, Christian parents will see this as completely untrue. This leads into the third core deceptive theme. Margaret goes home and complains to God that she keeps trying to find God, but just doesn’t see Him in any of these churches. The takeaway for kids is that God is available to everyone, but that the modern world finds Him outside of those old stuffy religious settings. Spiritual, but not religions. Everything in the New Testament is written to us in the context of life within corporate worship. This is not an optional add-on. The fourth deceptive takeaway is that short, shallow, mostly selfish prayers to a genie “god” are just fine (again, remember she is in 6th grade). Finally, the fifth example to point out is the harmful view is that we are all basically good people deserving of blessing from God. There are a couple points when things go poorly for Margaret, she asks Him, “Haven’t I always done what you wanted?”. Romans and several other places in the scripture have very direct language on just how good and deserving we are on our own merit. Now if this had all been a starting point that was resolved in Truth on the road to a happy ending, maybe it would be different. That is the storyline path that books like Treasures of the Snow and the Rainbow Garden follow. Not the case here. Please realize that we could have listed out many examples of each point above, but unfortunately there is a lot more to get to so we will move on. — As mentioned above the story casually discusses “Playboy” (a pornographic magazine). Margaret tells her friends that her father receives the magazine as if it is the most natural thing in the world and she has looked in them. The worst of this comes when Margaret’s new friend Nancy announces, “In a few years I’m going to look like one of those girls in Playboy”. There is also a comment that 14-year-old boys only think of 2 things: pictures of naked girls and dirty books. Later the girls sneak one dad’s anatomy book, barricade the door and look at the male anatomy. There is a set of very immature dialog that includes discussion on a boy from class, one of the girl’s brothers, one of the girl’s fathers and an aunt who went to a nudist colony. Margaret then goes and gets her father’s Playboy magazine for the girls to look at. The treatment of pornography in the book shows the flippant nature this title takes on extremely important topics (such as religion) — At a party a group of boys and girls are left basically unsupervised in a basement. They start to play spin the bottle. They then decide to change it to “two minutes in the closet” where they have several rounds of a boy and girl going into a bathroom together alone. On Margaret’s turn a boy kisses her several times. There is never any indication this is wrong. — It is also important for Christian parents to know that this book has extensive dialog around young girls anticipating and then receiving their first period. Some of this appears between parent and child, but much of it is conversation between children. This discussion on menstruation is intentionally detailed and direct. Not that this is “concerning” in itself, but this is probably not the source of this information Christian parents will want for their children. These same comments apply to the topic of girls “developing” (in reference to breast size) as well, with a few additions. Margaret goes to change into a borrowed swimsuit and Nancy tells her, why not change right there in front of her. She then comments, “oh, you’re still flat… I’m growing already. There is a lot of immature focus on this topic throughout. Later Margaret stuffs her bra. Her parents notice as she is about to leave for a party and just smile to each other, but take no other action. There is also a lot of focus throughout the book on a girl in the class who is described as being significantly more developed than any of the other girls. Gossip is spread that this girl has a reputation and regularly goes behind a store with older boys. The gossip also indicates multiple male teachers at the school looking at her inappropriately — This book has no great characters from a morality perspective. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find even a relatively good character. Margaret’s parents are often not very kind with each other or any extended family and are extremely hostile and outspoken against anything that even smells of religion (e.g., saying a girl her age shouldn’t bother herself with religion). There are several instances where Margaret’s grandmother significantly oversteps her boundaries, occasionally telling her not to tell her parents about things or to go against her parents’ wishes. Her new friend group gossips, lies, are far too focused on kissing/boys/makeup and say multiple things like Margaret is “lucky” for not going to church. — Other items include one girl asking another how much weight she put on this summer - causing the girl to put several cookies back, a girl is called a prude for saying she won’t walk around nude when married (a girl says she will change her mind one day and want everyone to see like the girls in the pornographic magazines). Margaret tells her friend not to tell her mother something and seems to get worse morally as the book goes on. — There could have been paragraphs more written here if we listed out every detail we took down while reading, but there should be no need at this point.