Now Everybody Really Hates Me (1993) by Jane Read Martin and Patricia Marx

Authors

Gareth B. Matthews, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Files

Description

Patty Jane has been confined to her room for misbehaving at her brother’s birthday party. She resolves to stay there for the rest of her life, never cleaning it, even if poisonous mushrooms grow on her bed. She conceives an extravagant scheme for walking her dog without leaving her room, and a more extravagant plan to dig a tunnel so she can pull the plug when her brother takes a bath. Patty Jane is never conciliatory or matter-of-fact. Every threat, every promise is an outrageously imaginative idea. Being under the control of others—her parents—she belongs to the great army of the oppressed. But she is not defenseless. Her chief weapon of retaliation is bravado. Patty Jane is striking a pose, perhaps for her own encouragement and self-respect as much as for anything else. Posturing need not be self-deceptive. Sometimes, it is one’s best survival strategy.

Publication Date

1994

Publisher

Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children

City

Montclair

Keywords

bravado, control, imagination, oppression, punishment, self-respect, siblings

Disciplines

Early Childhood Education | Education | Philosophy

Comments

Originally published in Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children 11(2): 1, 1994.

Recommended Citation

Matthews, Gareth B., "Now Everybody Really Hates Me (1993) by Jane Read Martin and Patricia Marx" (1994). Picture Books. 50.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/iapc_thinkingstories_picturebooks/50