Hello everyone.
So I truly do not know how we got to this point,
but today we are going to be rating
every book that Lisa Simpson reads in The Simpsons
based on how child appropriate those books are.
That's it, that's the video.
Lisa Simpson is eight, she's eight.
She is eight years old.
Granted,
she's been eight for about 32 years,
but she is still eight years old
and she has the most refined taste in literature
ever known to humankind... or cartoon kind.
And I realized that she's often depicted
actually holding real books, see exhibit A,
I rest my case.
So like the perfectly sane human being that I am,
I am going to go through all of them.
And you know,
if you thought that doing a degree
in English literature would get you nowhere in life.
You're absolutely correct, my friend,
I just feel like we need more nerd representation
on YouTube.com and also,
I'm absolutely buzzing because today's video
is brought to you by HelloFresh,
which is the UK's leading recipe box.
So, without further ado,
let's get on to book number one.
And that book is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.
This is a book for people
who are mentally unstable
and suffice to say, I loved it.
I think this is one of those books
that you just never, ever forget reading.
So, I mean,
already I'm thinking Lisa's taste is immaculate.
And the story is basically
about a woman called Esther
who moves to New York City
for an internship at a fashion magazine
and her mental health,
which kind of deteriorates in the process.
And she describes her depression as feeling suffocated,
like being in a bell jar.
There's themes of suicide and sexual assault.
So I'm feeling like,
as far as suitability for an eight year old goes,
it's not necessarily
what I would read my future kids
as like a bedtime story,
but it does address some quite important issues.
So, I think we need a rating system
and I'm thinking that Lisa's head
kind of looks like a star,
so let's do it out of five stars,
but the stars will be Lisa heads.
So five Lisa heads will be
it's so child appropriate
that Maggie Simpson could enjoy it.
And then on the other end of the spectrum,
we have one star, one Lisa Head,
and that kind of realm is like,
if you're eight years old and reading this,
that is going to emotionally scar you.
So The Bell Jar gets two Lisa heads, I think.
Also, one thing I will say though,
is that people tend to read Plath
exclusively sort of autobiographically,
and actually I think that's really reductive
because The Bell Jar has some fascinating symbolism
about food, about fashion.
There's a conversation about the Civil War,
and the death penalty.
It's so interesting.
I can't recommend this book enough.
Okay, moving on.
The next book is The Brothers Karamazov.
Firstly, I just want to say
that that copy is a catfish.
That book has been face tuning itself
because it is not that skinny in real life.
Look, I mean,
I don't mean to fat shame of book,
but like she's a mammoth.
And that's because the Russians
just had so much to say,
imagine having that much to say about anything ever.
I couldn't tell you this much about myself
and I've been me for 22 years.
Oh, God,
wait if I'm 22 then that means that Lisa Simpson
has been eight years old for longer
than I have been alive by a decade.
That's impressive to be fair.
This book is about morality,
the role of God, free will.
And it's also about patricide.
So, like killing your own father,
which in Lisa Simpson's situation,
I guess kind of makes sense.
But I think based on how long and complex this book is,
I am going to get at 1.5 Lisa heads.
And by the way, I should just clarify.
I've never read this book.
I own it,
but I don't think
I ever will get round to reading this book.
Because my attention span
is the length of a TikTok.
So, the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
I love Emily Dickinson.
We are putting the simp in Simpsons for Emily Dickinson.
She's fascinating because she lived most of her life
in isolation, and actually none of her poetry
was published while she was alive.
Her sister found 900 poems wrapped in twine.
So, her sister was the one who deciphered them
and got them all published.
I would say,
if you are looking for some short, impactful poetry,
then Emily Dickinson is your gal.
The thing is though,
probably the most prevalent theme
in Emily Dickinson's work,
or at least what she's most known for,
is the way that she depicts death.
For example, we have,
"Because I could not stop for death,
He kindly stopped for me,
the carriage held but just ourselves
and immortality."
I'm going to give Emily Dickinson
three Lisa heads, I think for child appropriateness.
Next up,
we have Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.
Where's my copy.
There we go, there she is.
Let's just blow the dust off of that.
Walt Whitman is another pioneering American poet.
And he basically saw the whole European poetry thing
that we had going on.
And he was like, okay guys,
that's cute.
But I want to create my own
uniquely American style of poetry
because I'm not like other poets.
And so Leaves of Grass is about life, and death,
and democracy, and individualism.
And honestly,
it's going to get 3.5 Lisa heads from me
because I feel like it's relatively child appropriate.
I mean,
I kind of felt like mumsnet doing this.
And that is definitely not a good thing.
I mean,
I'm not quite as bad as mumsnet yet
because I think they would ban this
for having the word ass in grass,
but it's a slippery slope.
Ah, the next book
is another one that I have,
and that is Anne of Green Gables.
Now this is an actual children's book
and this is what inspired the Netflix adaptation
Anne with an E.
It's about a 13 year old girl called Anne Shirley
who is mistakenly adopted by these two siblings in Canada.
And it's about her time at school,
at home, and in that town that she grows up in.
But it's also about friendship, and family,
and imagination, and Christianity.
So I think this gets five Lisa heads.
This is very much
what you would expect an eight year old to read.
Okay, this one is called How To Cook Humans.
And I think this would get one Lisa head for, you know,
cannibalism.
It's the bare minimum,
but I'm pretty sure that the joke here
is that Lisa blows some dust off of the cover,
and it actually says How To Cook Forty Humans.
And she's like, "Oh my God, what the hell?"
And then she blows off some more dust,
and it's actually How To Cook For Forty Humans.
So it's actually just a mass catering book.
And so in which case, that would be five Lisa heads.
But speaking of cooking,
let's go join me in my kitchen.
(loud snapping)
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Okay.
The next book is called The Book of British Smiles.
And raise your hand
if you have ever been personally victimized by the Simpsons.
That is a violation.
Oh my God, not Prince Charles.
Oh, dude.
I can't even like,
you can always tell British people by our teeth.
All men in my family have a gap in our front teeth,
which we call the Edwards gap.
So I can't even,
I can't even pretend this isn't true.
One Lisa head.
Terrifying.
On to the next one.
Now this is Kurt Vonnegut's full collection.
I think that the one in the front is Cat's Cradle.
Now, the only Vonnegut book I've read
is Slaughterhouse-Five,
which is a book about someone
who is an American soldier in Germany.
And he's captured as a prisoner of war in Dresden,
and that's actually what happened
to Kurt Vonnegut himself.
And so that character is basically
incredibly traumatized.
He deals with PTSD
and he kind of imagines that he time traveled
and was abducted and taken to an alien planet
and then held in a zoo on their planet.
Thinking about it now,
the aliens also abduct an adult movie star
and bring her to the zoo to mate
with Billy, who's the main character.
So in terms of child appropriateness,
that's going to get a big,
whopping one Lisa head from me.
The book is very good though,
although it's completely absurd.
And the first line is,
"All of this happened more or less."
So you kind of have this like unreliable narrator.
And I would recommend.
That is an iconic book.
Speaking of iconic books, Gravity's Rainbow.
This book is a red flag
and anyone who says it isn't,
is color blind.
Like if someone tells you
that they've read this book in its entirety,
I would suggest running very, very far,
'cause you don't know what else they're capable of.
To put this into perspective,
this book is described as one of the longest,
most difficult, most ambitious novels of all time.
And I truly don't believe
that anyone's actually ever read it.
If you have, then I applaud you.
But also,
I am afraid of you.
As part of my degree,
I had to read The Crying of Lot 49,
which is also by Thomas Pynchon.
And it's like a 10th of the length
and it was still enough to put me off for life.
So I've Googled Gravity's Rainbow.
And apparently one of the main motifs is sadomasochism.
So, you know,
those themes added to the length of the book.
I think that this is going to be a one Lisa head for me.
And actually Lisa Simpson
doesn't even read it herself.
In this clip she's actually just admiring
that someone else has read it,
which is very relatable.
And so basically she's like,
oh my God, you're reading Gravity's Rainbow.
And then that girl is like, re-reading it.
And that tells you
everything you need to know
about the type of people who would read this book.
I would not touch it with a very long stick.
Next we have every J. D. Salinger book,
except The Catcher in the Rye,
which is very annoying
because the only J.D. Salinger book I've read
is Catcher in the Rye.
So, um,
let's just skip this one.
The next book is called Greatest Sport Injuries.
And this is not a book I've read,
but based on the decapitated head on the cover,
I'm going to go out on a limb here,
and say this probably isn't
what you want your child reading.
That's going to be a one Lisa head,
which is one less head than that man now has
attached to his body.
Too soon, moving on.
Ah, Grimm's Fairytales.
Now that's fun.
So, on one hand,
these are fairytales
and some of the most iconic
and well-known fairytales of all times.
You had Snow White,
Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel,
Rumpelstiltskin,
The Pied Piper.
So many famous stories,
but these stories by The Brothers Grimm
are actually quite gruesome,
and twisted, and dark.
Probably a lot more dark
than you imagine in kind of how
we've had them Disney-fied to us.
I think I'm going to go for four Lisa heads,
because you know what?
Life isn't a fairy tale
and the sooner that you learn that the better.
That was so morbid,
where did that come from?
Speaking of creepy,
we have The Tell-Tale Heart,
which is a reference to Edgar Allen Poe.
I've said it before, I'll say it again.
I am an Edgar Allen hoe.
The Tell-Tale Heart
is this love story where the narrator is basically
trying to convince the reader that he is sane.
So basically like me with my YouTube channel.
The narrator then kills an old man.
And by the way,
this is where the parallels
between me and the story stop.
But the whole time he's like,
I love the old man, he's so sweet.
Essentially trying to convince the reader
that it was an accident,
but like he killed him
and the police come over to investigate
the disappearance of this old man.
And they don't think the narrator is guilty at all,
but eventually he just gets so nervous and paranoid
that he just confesses to the whole thing.
So it's a great story.
It is a bit gruesome,
but I'm going to get this two Lisa heads I think.
Next one is
Public Nudity: Codes and Statutes.
So I'm going to give that
a whopping one Lisa head out five
because she's eight.
On the other hand,
the Tin Tin comics.
I mean,
this gets a big fat five Lisa heads
because it's actually written for children.
And now we come to Harry Potter
by she who must not be named.
This book is Lisa's childhood obsession.
Just like for so many of us,
obviously quite literally, so magical.
These books are just phenomenal.
If only there was a spell
to fix J. K. trolling for being a terf.
And I guess I just wanted to add here
that trans women are women,
and if you identify as that,
then you're important,
and you are valid, and you are worthy,
regardless of what someone you may have once idolized
has said publicly.
I'm so sorry that she would invalidate everything about you.
And although she is a literal cartoon,
I believe that Lisa Simpson would feel the same.
So Harry Potter gets five Lisa heads.
Transphobia gets zero.
Okay, so this is the bookmobile
where Lisa recommends that they stock
anything by Jane Austen.
And yes, I agree.
Emma and Northanger Abbey are the best Jane Austen novels.
I will die on this hill.
Austen is a legend.
And for child appropriateness,
this gets four Lisa heads to be honest.
So this is where Lisa meets Amy Tan,
who wrote The Joy Luck Club.
And I haven't read this book,
but I've just read a Wikipedia article on.
So I'm ready to mansplain it to you now.
So apparently it's a book about people
playing the Chinese game mahjong and eating food,
which sounds like a vibe, by the way.
And the book
is literally structured like a game of mahjong.
That is so sick.
I'm not being funny.
As soon as I finish filming,
I'm ordering that book
'cause that sounds incredible.
And thank you,
Queen of literature, Lisa Simpson.
I appreciate the recommendation.
Man and Superman.
This one is a play.
Honestly, it's the range for me.
And again, there's a theme here.
I own a copy of this,
but I haven't yet read it.
And this play kind of,
satirizes the difference between the sexes
and it's about the author's belief
in the conflict between man,
as the kind of spiritual creator,
and women who he saw as the
guardian of sort of biological continuity.
So it's kind of outdated,
but not necessarily not child appropriate.
So I'm just going to give it three Lisa heads,
because apparently I'm just feeling lazy.
Charlotte's Web,
this is five solid Lisa heads right there.
However,
I do have to say, I do have mixed opinions on this.
Basically on one hand,
it's a lovely story about friendship,
and farmyard animals,
the spider and the pig looking out for each other.
But the story is basically
about how Wilbur the pig is due to be slaughtered.
And so Charlotte, the spider,
writes words in her web like radiance,
so that people think the pig is like amazing.
But tell me why the spider gets none of the credit.
Charlotte does all of the work and gets paid dust.
Okay, I was ranting about Charlotte's Web
for so long and I didn't even notice
that my camera had literally died,
but this video is not about my beef with that book
or my pork.
So we'll just carry on.
Okay, last but not least.
It's so nearly over.
We have The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Now we love a bit of light bedtime reading.
Weirdly,
I have actually read this exact book
for my A-level history coursework.
And so,
I think I'm going to give it three Lisa heads,
because obviously it's important
to teach young children about German history,
but you know,
eight years old might be a little bit tender.
It might be a little bit young, but to each their own,
you know,
she is the most precocious eight year old
on the whole planet.
So it kind of makes sense.
Anyway, there we have it.
Thank you so much
for sticking around to the end of the video.
Massive shout-out to HelloFresh sponsoring it.
And the link to get your first box for 50% off
is down below in my crotch
alongside all my social media links.
I can't promise we'll never do a video
as stupid as this ever again.
It's kind of my brand, but until next time,
have a lovely day, subscribe and goodbye.