Sweetapple Farm

I wish I could like this picture book. It is very pretty indeed - lots of jolly charming water colour pictures, interesting text with animal noises to make and a picture of a rural idyll which brings tears to the eyes. The laughing farmer and his family go through their jolly day and provide what the publisher, oddly, intends as, 'an excellent learning aid for parents and teachers'. My problem is the dishonesty of it all. We really ought not to be telling children that this is what farms are like. They are no longer places where pigs, ducks, horses and hens roam in smiling freedom while the smiling farmer milks the cows by hand. If this is a picture of farms in the past, then get rid of the modern tractor; if it is intended as a fictional, idealized farm, then let it begin, 'once upon a time' so that we know where we stand. It is the belief that farms are, really, still like this that enables the intensive farmer to get away with so much. Away with it, I say. If it is to be a learning aid, let it aid us to learn the truth.