Way to search for phrases across children's books?
February 13, 2024 7:32 AM Subscribe
Is there a way to easily search for specific phrases across a very broad swath of children's books?
Our school district is fielding another book removal request based on the use of a specific phrase ("I'll kill you!") within a particular book (the Bone series) and in order to cover my bases I'd like to see if I can find examples of this exact phrase used in any other prominent and/or classic elementary-school level children's books. But I have NO idea how to begin that search. Is there a relatively easy way for me to do this?
Our school district is fielding another book removal request based on the use of a specific phrase ("I'll kill you!") within a particular book (the Bone series) and in order to cover my bases I'd like to see if I can find examples of this exact phrase used in any other prominent and/or classic elementary-school level children's books. But I have NO idea how to begin that search. Is there a relatively easy way for me to do this?
Best answer: Examples: Calvin and Hobbes; Horrid Henry (pg 24); Harry Potter; Captain Underpants' spinoff series (chapt 3); and it's all over Animorphs, to the point that it's probably most expedient for you to just ask a search engine for results from site:files.animorphsfanforum.com. If "I'm going to kill you" would be acceptable, Garfield also has some, and the first Narnia has "I will kill you" regarding Aslan. I feel like I have encountered others and will check with my kid too. No clue either how else one would conduct such a search, sorry: I'm basically just thinking of narratives that focus directly on relationships between children, ideally with significant adversity and/or a tendency towards hyperbole, and then scrounging around for full-text sources.
posted by teremala at 9:31 AM on February 13, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by teremala at 9:31 AM on February 13, 2024 [1 favorite]
Google Books has full-text search, but it doesn't always display the actual excerpt. You might be able to limit it to youth literature by adding search terms like "children's."
Apologies for the following unsolicited advice: I am a librarian who works with adults, not children, but I don't know if it's productive to engage with the bad-faith arguments of individual book challenges. I totally see what you're going for, and listing other books with this phrase could be a strong rhetorical point for, say, a comment at a public meeting (especially if you find the phrase in a Christian series like Narnia). On the flipside, the challengers could use it as an excuse to add more books to their challenge list.
Basically, there's a risk in letting book challengers set the terms of the conversation. Focusing on positive messaging about the First Amendment, existing school policies, and shared values such as educational outcomes and parents' rights (to choose their kids' books) may be more constructive.
posted by toastedcheese at 10:28 AM on February 13, 2024 [2 favorites]
Apologies for the following unsolicited advice: I am a librarian who works with adults, not children, but I don't know if it's productive to engage with the bad-faith arguments of individual book challenges. I totally see what you're going for, and listing other books with this phrase could be a strong rhetorical point for, say, a comment at a public meeting (especially if you find the phrase in a Christian series like Narnia). On the flipside, the challengers could use it as an excuse to add more books to their challenge list.
Basically, there's a risk in letting book challengers set the terms of the conversation. Focusing on positive messaging about the First Amendment, existing school policies, and shared values such as educational outcomes and parents' rights (to choose their kids' books) may be more constructive.
posted by toastedcheese at 10:28 AM on February 13, 2024 [2 favorites]
Exodus 22:24
"And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword...."
...unless your interlocutors want to suggest that Exodus is not suitable reading for children by the same rationale?
But I think toastedcheese is probably (sadly) correct, and it's not a good faith argument in the first place.
posted by adekllny at 11:00 AM on February 13, 2024 [1 favorite]
"And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword...."
...unless your interlocutors want to suggest that Exodus is not suitable reading for children by the same rationale?
But I think toastedcheese is probably (sadly) correct, and it's not a good faith argument in the first place.
posted by adekllny at 11:00 AM on February 13, 2024 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Just to clarify:
The purpose of this exercise is not to convince the person making the request, it's to generate a recommendation and build a robust public record upon which the local administration can rely in making its final determination on whether or not to remove the book. As indicated in my previous question, it is helpful to place contested language in context, not only within the specific work but in relation to other works which are generally accepted as grade-appropriate and which also contain similar language or themes.
Thanks!
posted by saladin at 11:17 AM on February 13, 2024
The purpose of this exercise is not to convince the person making the request, it's to generate a recommendation and build a robust public record upon which the local administration can rely in making its final determination on whether or not to remove the book. As indicated in my previous question, it is helpful to place contested language in context, not only within the specific work but in relation to other works which are generally accepted as grade-appropriate and which also contain similar language or themes.
Thanks!
posted by saladin at 11:17 AM on February 13, 2024
Best answer: There are a couple of collections of collections of children's books at the Internet Archive, and you can search within text, so searching Children's Library turns up 21 hits, including Tom Sawyer and fairy tales from Spain and Czechoslovakia, while searching the UCLA Children's Book Collection turns up 5 hits.
posted by kristi at 11:24 AM on February 13, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by kristi at 11:24 AM on February 13, 2024 [1 favorite]
Maybe overkill, but:
For (mostly) older books that are in the public domain, if you have a lot of storage space and a decently fast internet connection you might be able to download the children's books collections from Project Gutenberg (I notice that the collections link includes "Christmas" as a search term in the URL, which is very weird but maybe good for your purposes). There might be existing torrents for specific bookshelves/categories which would make your life easier.
For newer books, this isn't technically legal but there are probably bulk torrents for thousands of popular kids' books. Should you download something like that, you could then automatically run calibre's ebook conversion tool on them (there's also a command-line version of the tool) to convert to plain text, rtf, or html. (Project Gutenberg books should be easily available in txt/html to begin with.)
Once you've got ebooks in searchable formats, you can go ahead and search for any string.
it's all over Animorphs, to the point that it's probably most expedient for you to just ask a search engine for results from site:files.animorphsfanforum.com
In case you're not familiar with this usage, on google you'd enter the following in the search box:
posted by trig at 1:01 PM on February 13, 2024
For (mostly) older books that are in the public domain, if you have a lot of storage space and a decently fast internet connection you might be able to download the children's books collections from Project Gutenberg (I notice that the collections link includes "Christmas" as a search term in the URL, which is very weird but maybe good for your purposes). There might be existing torrents for specific bookshelves/categories which would make your life easier.
For newer books, this isn't technically legal but there are probably bulk torrents for thousands of popular kids' books. Should you download something like that, you could then automatically run calibre's ebook conversion tool on them (there's also a command-line version of the tool) to convert to plain text, rtf, or html. (Project Gutenberg books should be easily available in txt/html to begin with.)
Once you've got ebooks in searchable formats, you can go ahead and search for any string.
it's all over Animorphs, to the point that it's probably most expedient for you to just ask a search engine for results from site:files.animorphsfanforum.com
In case you're not familiar with this usage, on google you'd enter the following in the search box:
"I'll kill you" site:files.animorphsfanforum.com
posted by trig at 1:01 PM on February 13, 2024
You might try looking for some content analysis studies in academic databases. They might not be that exact string, but you might find some papers that looked for killing, murder, intent, etc.
posted by Snowishberlin at 6:34 AM on February 14, 2024
posted by Snowishberlin at 6:34 AM on February 14, 2024
Best answer: "Someday," said Johnny, his good nature restored, "I'll kill you, Dove. In the meantime, you have your uses." - Johnny Tremaine, Newbery Medal winner (1944) and on lists of the All-Time Bestselling Children's Books (Publisher Weekly, 2001)
[Several "kill" phrases in Charlotte's Web, from the child Fern (at the start) to pragmatic sheep.]
More junior high/HS YA, than children's lit: 1847's Wuthering Heights ("If you don’t let me in I’ll kill you!—If you don’t let me in, I’ll kill you!” he rather shrieked than said. "Devil! devil!—I’ll kill you—I’ll kill you!”) and 2005's The Afterlife ("You dent my ride, and I'll kill you!" he threatened with a mean smile, and maybe meant it.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:40 AM on February 14, 2024
[Several "kill" phrases in Charlotte's Web, from the child Fern (at the start) to pragmatic sheep.]
More junior high/HS YA, than children's lit: 1847's Wuthering Heights ("If you don’t let me in I’ll kill you!—If you don’t let me in, I’ll kill you!” he rather shrieked than said. "Devil! devil!—I’ll kill you—I’ll kill you!”) and 2005's The Afterlife ("You dent my ride, and I'll kill you!" he threatened with a mean smile, and maybe meant it.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:40 AM on February 14, 2024
Response by poster: Another unanimous vote to retain! Thanks to all who answered.
posted by saladin at 11:32 AM on February 26, 2024
posted by saladin at 11:32 AM on February 26, 2024
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posted by saladin at 7:33 AM on February 13, 2024