Alert the media: a new Maxwell product!

[Hane]

Sadly, yes. They are just as stilted and fake-sounding as the blog. Look! The Moody family eats breakfast. The Moody girls dress in matching jumpers. The Moody family takes care of pets. The Moody family tells all their neighbors about Jesus. The Moody boys love getting tools for their birthday so they can bless their family by doing projects. The power going out is a MAJOR EVENT. blahblahblahblahblahblah. Forever 'n ever amen. :pray:

And the heck of it is, a skilled writer could take mundane events like those and make them entertaining. I'm thinking authors like Beverly Cleary and her Ramona Quimby books. She could even do religion right: like when little Ramona goes off on the kids in the playground for "blasphemy" when they start chanting "Jesus, Beezus" at her sister (Beezus is Beatrice's nickname), and when Ramona cheerfully yelped, "Yeep! Yeep!" because she wanted to "make a joyous noise until [sic] the Lord."

[VodouDoll]

Well, I thought the phrasing was odd, too. As authors, THEY would be the proofreaders, and then if they hire someone else to take a shot at it, THAT person would be the editor.

At my last job, my office shared a floor with the headquarters of a small scholarly magazine so I got to see their workings up close. It was pretty neat. The magazine's editor decided the theme of each issue, worked closely with his writers to judge whether proposed essays were a good fit, helped shape the pieces as they were developed and written, and made final decisions about whether something was good enough to make it to print. The magazine also employed a freelance proofreader whose job was to mark errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

What I took from the Maxwells having an outside proofreader but no editor is that they believe the things they write are already in their very best form, no improvements, cuts, revisions, or elaborations necessary, but maybe a few typos that they want a second pair of eyes to help catch. A proofreader would tell Sarah that she's misplaced a comma, but an editor would tell her that the Moodys' dialogue is stilted and weird and she needs to totally rework it.

Someone else in the thread mentioned their Preparing Sons to Provide for a Single Income Family book, which reminded me of when I first found the Maxwells. They were my gateway fundies, and when I saw that was the title of one of their books I thought it was pretty pessimistic of them to assume their boys would all wind up divorced. I was so naive back then.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I adore the Ramona books. A big part of what makes them good is that Ramona has an active inner life, and she gets CONFUSED about stuff. In the books told from her POV, that means the reader is right along with her as she wonders just what is going on and tries to make sense of it all (and like the "Yeep! Yeep!" it DOES make sense - just not what the world is thinking!).

Ramona also misbehaves and has negative feelings though - she gets jealous, envious, tempted... and learns, which means she can't ever appear within light years of a Moody book. The Moodys have to be perfect at a Maxwellian level (since the books are aimed at other Maxwellian lifestyle kids) so they can't ever have conflicts, really. It's a symptom of a lot of bad "Christian" media (the better stuff allows for people behaving badly and just makes sure they get theirs in the end to teach the lesson).

[Loveday]

Every time I see that a new post has been added to this thread, I run here hoping to find that we now know what the new Maxwell product is. :lol:

Beverly Cleary is one of my all time favourite authors. Even her books for teens, "Fifteen," "The Luckiest Girl," and "Jean and Johnny" are wonderful. A little dated, of course, as they were published in the 50s, but then, so was I, in a manner of speaking. :)

[mg78]

Also, it could be possible they cannot afford a good editor. They may see it as a waste of money because the product is already "so great" that they do not want to spend money on that.

[Hane]

Beverly Cleary is one of my all time favourite authors. Even her books for teens, "Fifteen," "The Luckiest Girl," and "Jean and Johnny" are wonderful. A little dated, of course, as they were published in the 50s, but then, so was I, in a manner of speaking. :)

When my daughter was little and we were first introduced to Cleary's books, one Christmas I bought her the entire Ramona series and we marathon-read them over Christmas vacation. I wrote her a fan letter (by coincidence, Ramona and her sisters have about the same age spacing as my sisters and I), and she actually responded. She was thoughtful and down to earth, and said that the average American parent didn't cut herself nearly enough slack.

I think of writers like Cleary, Patterson, L'Engle, and E. Nesbit, and am sad that fundie kids are missing out on such great stories because they don't follow the party line closely enough.

[Loveday]

When my daughter was little and we were first introduced to Cleary's books, one Christmas I bought her the entire Ramona series and we marathon-read them over Christmas vacation. I wrote her a fan letter (by coincidence, Ramona and her sisters have about the same age spacing as my sisters and I), and she actually responded. She was thoughtful and down to earth, and said that the average American parent didn't cut herself nearly enough slack.

I think of writers like Cleary, Patterson, L'Engle, and E. Nesbit, and am sad that fundie kids are missing out on such great stories because they don't follow the party line closely enough.

Lucky, lucky you, I'm so jealous! I just looked her up and realised she's still living! :o She's 97, bless her. :) My favourite of her children's books is 'Ellen Tebbits'; I still have my Scholastic-ordered copy of that one from when I was in about the 4th grade. :lol:

It's definitely heartbreaking to realise how many fundie kids have missed out on the joys of Beverly Cleary and other wonderful authors. :cry:

[lilith]

And very well trained. She saw bugs and immediately ran for the broom and dustpan. :cry: Most little kids would want to look and them, try to figure out why they were dead, or be curious about them.

I bet she was terrified that her mother would be frowned on as a lax housekeeper. And lo, she was, with a passive aggressive mention on the Maxhell blog, telling us all that she wasn't up to date on her housework schedule and had bugs on her windowsill, necessitating the help of the godly original recipe Maxwell girls.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Lucky, lucky you, I'm so jealous! I just looked her up and realised she's still living! :o She's 97, bless her. :) My favourite of her children's books is 'Ellen Tebbits'; I still have my Scholastic-ordered copy of that one from when I was in about the 4th grade. :lol:

It's definitely heartbreaking to realise how many fundie kids have missed out on the joys of Beverly Cleary and other wonderful authors. :cry:

Ellen Tebbits! I remember reading that one because I did not know what "comeuppance" meant, and it took me a while to find a dictionary that had that word in it. (Meaning, a proper English to English dictionary not only aimed at kids or EFL people.)

I love the original illustrations in the early Beverly Cleary books too - done by Louis Darling. I appreciate the Ramona avatar by him I see here :)

Books where kids have a rich inner life are great. I love Judy Blume for this too, also "Harriet the Spy." Let the character get confused, get conflicted, wonder all those things that the reader maybe wonders but doesn't talk about, and let the character find some answers and peace.

Alas, can't happen in a Maxwellian book...

[doctor who fan]

Ellen Tebbits!

Oh my I loved that book. She got in so much trouble because she didn't want to wear her woolen underwear.

[MamaJunebug]

AAUGGH! ...

I realize a picture is just a split-second view and what we see is often without context but I'm always struck by how much Abby has changed. Gone is that goofy kid smile. She always has such a far-away look on her face and her smile now never, ever goes to her eyes. It makes me sad. She's an old woman at what, age 6?

I've noticed that for quite a while, too. It seemed to happen about the time Bethany started to really move around. I can imagine the b.s. she started to get from Terified: "Stop making that face, it isn't ladylike." "That face" being the crinkly-eyed grin that Abby used to get, that Bethany still gets to a certain extent. Wtih Abby this far into the Maxwell-approved Smile Habit, Bethany probably is getting coached not only from Terified but from big sis Abby as well.y

You can see a similar smile on Elizabeth Munck's in the Munck's Quiver blog entry about her 20th birthday (March 2012, IIRC). Already there, she was being maxgroomed to appear a certain, sober way. She'd even told her family of origin she wanted an "adult" - no fun deorations, etc. - party.

Y'know, this being the case, I'm surprised they allow Reversal Anna to smile as widely as she does. She's got a gummy smile that I personally don't care for, if I had a smile like that I'd probably hold my lips a little closer together, like they have Abby doing, like they started to have Elizabeth doing. Odd.

Don't hate me for not liking gummy smiles, BTW. it's just one of my things.

I'm so glad for Elizabeth's escape. And I wonder that Melanie permits her daughters to be "taught" how to smile by her in-laws. I'm going to assume that she only lets that happen when there's a Maxwell taking the photo. BEcause I want the granddaughters to have real lives, when it comes to that point.

[Chibi Author]

I've noticed that for quite a while, too. It seemed to happen about the time Bethany started to really move around. I can imagine the b.s. she started to get from Terified: "Stop making that face, it isn't ladylike." "That face" being the crinkly-eyed grin that Abby used to get, that Bethany still gets to a certain extent. Wtih Abby this far into the Maxwell-approved Smile Habit, Bethany probably is getting coached not only from Terified but from big sis Abby as well.y

You can see a similar smile on Elizabeth Munck's in the Munck's Quiver blog entry about her 20th birthday (March 2012, IIRC). Already there, she was being maxgroomed to appear a certain, sober way. She'd even told her family of origin she wanted an "adult" - no fun deorations, etc. - party.

Y'know, this being the case, I'm surprised they allow Reversal Anna to smile as widely as she does. She's got a gummy smile that I personally don't care for, if I had a smile like that I'd probably hold my lips a little closer together, like they have Abby doing, like they started to have Elizabeth doing. Odd.

Don't hate me for not liking gummy smiles, BTW. it's just one of my things.

I'm so glad for Elizabeth's escape. And I wonder that Melanie permits her daughters to be "taught" how to smile by her in-laws. I'm going to assume that she only lets that happen when there's a Maxwell taking the photo. BEcause I want the granddaughters to have real lives, when it comes to that point.

I kinda agree about Anna. I'm not hating on her (I mean, she can't help it), but I just really, really wish they would show a picture of her where she's not smiling. I kind of want to see what she looks like without the gums, you know?

Come to think of it, I wish they'd show ALL of the family not smiling sometimes. It might make them seem more human.

[MamaJunebug]

Chibi Author, I agree that the whole fam would seem a lot more human and attractive without the constant smiles.

If we see some such photos in future, we'll have to thank Stevus, won't we? ;)

[Sola]

You know I wonder what Steve-o would do if a new daughter in law turned around and said the didn't want MOTH or the chore packs because they'd grown up with their own ways of organisation. Or if the DIL wanted more varied reading materials other than The Moody's Do Fuck All.

I guess really what would have been the result if Liz had married Joe. Her family despite being fun die, are so different. I suspect Steve-o would have ground her down and she would end up like Melanie who looks like her soul has been sucked out. But what if Liz had resisted and kept that spark.

[thoughtful]

Or if the DIL wanted more varied reading materials other than The Moody's Do Fuck All.

Sola, how did you know? That's the title of the next book in the series!

[SamuraiKatz]

With only a 50% courtship success rating, Stevie is trying to save face. There must be other people who follow them or loosely follow them and see that their,’ what some would call’ dating model is only half successful apart from us. Maybe we could all leave comments suggesting such?

And yes as others have stated, it is also another two fingers up at the Munks. “Vengeance is mine said the Lord†Stevie :naughty:

Maybe the new book has a chapter stating that the bride-to-be is suggested by Stevie not to call off the wedding a few weeks before it happens without her headships permission? – or she will be living with the Devil when she dies?

I should think the Devil would be be preferable to Max-Hell.