Censoring Books

A very censored book

Tonight I read a book to Kingsley about Humphrey the Humpback Whale. The story is cute aside from unnecessarily fat shaming Humphrey with anecdotes commonly dispelled on humans. A seagull calls Humphrey Blubber Belly, and Humprhey's size is criticized as too fat to fit under bridges he swims under while swimming up the Sacramento River away from the ocean.
I was actively reading, so as my eyes came to Blubber Belly, I skipped over it figuring silence would be better suited since I don't want my four year old saying Blubber Belly. I find myself having to censor a handful of Kingsley and George's books. One book in particular needs censoring on every other page. If my mind starts to drift while I am reading aloud I can accidentally read the parts I am trying to shield away from my children.
The most offensive book is called Purplicious. It is a follow up to a very cute, yet overly feminine, book called Pinkalicious. Purplicious starts out by the main character being bullied for liking the color pink. Her classmates call her a baby, and when she says her brother likes pink too, they laugh ridiculing him as a sissy because boys don't like pink. She cries daily, drops the h-word (hate, which should not be included in a toddlers vocabulary because its already hard enough to control the shit that comes out of their mouth), and as she begins to conform, abandoning her favorite color pink, she meets a girl who likes pink, and doesn't feel all alone in the world anymore. She rejoices.
I feel like my censoring actually highlights the bad parts to the kids, peaking their interest, because when I accidentally read the bad bits they notice the change in the story. When I catch myself midway through reading what I usually replace with something else, and react by stumbling over the words, saying, "Ooops!" my children notice.
Yesterday when we left the park Kingsley said to me, "No one understands me!" Which is a line from Purplicious, and I told her she is being dramatic, and I understand her. She spent her time at the park climbing a play structure where another little boy was playing. A couple minutes later she came over to me crying because she said the boy on the structure was a bully. I don't think he did anything aside from trying to talk to her. She talks about bullies lately because of a Little Critter book we have, called Just A Bully. Little Critter has to deal with a bully picking on him. The lesson in the book is to not be embarrassed about sticking up for yourself. In the story Little Critter's sister advises him to give the bully a punch, and so the end of the book Little Critter beats up the bully, and the bully doesn't ever bother him anymore. Not a good message for keeping the peace.
Kiki was tired that day. She had to wear her nightgown to the park because clothes were so overwhelmingly burdensome. She reacted as if I were removing a limb when I suggested she put on a dress. Her night gown is one of my tank tops tied up in the back, so it passes as shabby chic. I laughed to myself as I looked down at her complaining of being misunderstood, stumbling around wearing jammies during daytime with her hair disheveled, throwing out accusations of bullying when really it was just a kid who came up asking if she wants to play with him.
Maybe I need to loose Purplicious and Just a Bully for a couple years. The topics are too heavy for her, and replacing "hate" with "Don't Like" or only reading in my head, that boys who like pink are sissies, are not protecting her from the messages in these books. The messages are coming through regardless of my censoring. I guess censoring books really isn't that effective. Maybe I should try burning them.