My love of children's literature, and the scars it leaves on my children

This is a hell of a read if your dad is going to stir.

Actually, it's a hell of a read regardless of where your dad is or isn't going.

I was at the kiddie library with my daughter's yesterday and noticed this title while perusing the stacks of titles. It kind of jumped out at me, if you know what I mean.

I also grabbed, Did My First Mother Love Me? and Adoption is For Always, but the prose of When Andy's Father Went to Prsion leaves those two in the dust.

It seems that Andy's pa robbed a warehouse to nab some televisions so he could sell them to buy stuff for the family. They sent him away to a prison in Nashville. I'm thinking it was a lot like Cool Hand Luke in there. Andy's dad also had a mustache, clearly the markings of a criminal mastermind.

I tucked these books into the stash of books my kids had picked out and when we made our way to the checkout counter I realized that all of these books would be going on my 5-year-old daughter Dorothea's library card. Ever since she got her library card almost a year ago, she has demanded that she take care of the books being borrowed any time she is present for a library visit. It's the 5-year-old equivalent of picking up the check.

I felt a little dirty throwing my kid book choices in with Dorothea's. Having your daughter check out a book about a father going to the clink and all the drama behind that, is kind of like having your daughter buy you porn. At least it felt that way as the librarian scanned the bar codes of the book about the elephant, the book about the magical adventure through time and the book about the Southern white trash petty crook with the hopes for a country singing career (I'm making up the country singing career thing, but I gotta believe Andy's dad has the music in him).

Later at home while going through our books, Dorothea asked, "Daddy, what are those books?" Dorothea is still at that blissful age where she's on the brink of reading, so it is far, far easier for me to lie to her than I know it will be in a few years. I shrugged and said, "Oh, that's daddy's." She wasn't buying it and probed further saying, "What's it for Daddy?", giving me an eye as if to say she knew I was up to no good.

I told her it was for a project I was working on, and promised to read her a couple extra pages as she prepared for bed and pre slumber story telling. It seemed appropriate practicing the hallmarks of parenting called deceit and bribery when trying to hide my love to kid's prison literature from my daughter. And is was just as easy as breaking into a Southern warehouse to graft some goods and sell them out of the back of my car.