Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

This book revolves around a curse. The main character (Rex) finds a very old “game” in the form of a large glass case with a giant “grim reaper” character (shown in illustrations). They choose to play the game, lose and get the curse, which turns out to mean that Rex will now see and communicate with previously dead animals who won’t “pass on” until their deaths are brought to justice. It is all (including the drawings) meant to be light and funny, but this setup leads to a non-stop parade of terms around a topic that Christians should certainly try and avoid. Examples include mentions of curses, spirit guides, ghosts, spirits, otherworldly, underworld, “issues from the great beyond”, “haunt my nightmares”, torture techniques, skeletons, grim reaper, zombies and specter to name a few. Often this comes in a joke (e.g., “the chicken from beyond the grave”), but the question is if we really want to normalize this type of thing for our children. There are a few references to Heaven, but it comes across in a joking way with no reverence. — Rex exhibits nearly every type of behavior that we don’t want for our Christian children. For those of you familiar with Timmy Failure (or who read our review of that title) you will know exactly what this means because Rex is nearly a carbon copy of Timmy. They are both extraordinarily self-centered (“Today guys want to be me and the ladies want to be with me.” and “if I have a flaw, it is that.”). They both come across as being above paying attention in school (“It does seem to me an oral report is kind of a waste of time”) or showing any respect to teachers (e.g., “I need to see your Teacher Identification”). He shows no respect to parents (e.g., “dire circumstances overrule your parents' arbitrary decisions” and calling his parents “cheap”). He is also rude to/about classmates (e.g., when he says he is not listening “because I do not care what Sami Mulpepper has to say in general”) and to other characters, including a security guard he calls big in girth, too pudgy to commit murder and who he describes as “waddling”. He is not a good friend (e.g., “well, don’t tell your parents what you are doing.”) and even when he finally wants to acknowledge something good his friend did, he says the big accomplishment simply shows that “hanging out with him (Rex) is paying off”). He also exhibits no accountability (e.g., he tries and flush a pillow and then blames his father for obviously buying inferior plumbing or when he admits to not paying attention in class, but blames the teacher’s teaching ability). Again, all this is meant to be funny, but we as Christians are supposed to hold the line and refuse to believe that this is God’s intended purpose for the gift of humor. — There is a scattering of other things that should be mentioned: terms like booty and hindquarters, says “holy crud” many times in a row, references the adult movie “Big” in a way that would cause kids to want to go see it, constantly talking during class presentations and calls one classmate’s presentation pointless, calls adults saying they want honesty a lie and a sham, makes a “cross my heart” swear, mentions terms like diarrhea and “poopsylvania”, describes teachers “gossiping”, calls his punishment “child abuse” (it’s not), refers to police as Po-Po and the fuzz, mentions the terms naked and chick magnet, calls sitting at home on the night of a dance being a “sad sack”, and makes the comment “like a toddler shoving a grape in its nose, you know you should stop it, but you kind of want to see what happens.”