“Oscar” is part of a recent Sesame Street board book series called “Sesame Street Friends” (Random House Books for Young Readers, 2020) where each character gets their own book.
Read on for the full “Oscar” review, or scroll to the bottom of this post for simple vegan ratings.
Affiliate links:
Order “Oscar” from Bookshop.org.
Order “Oscar” from Amazon.
Quick Synopsis
“Oscar” is more of a character study than a plot-driven book. Each two-page spread has a short sentence about Oscar.
We learn that he’s a grouch, he lives in a garbage can, he likes messes, he has friends but doesn’t like hanging out with them too much, he has a pet worm to whom he reads bedtime stories, etc. (If I say anymore, I might as well reprint the text of the whole book!)
The tone is playful. In the two spreads about Oscar’s friends, we get to see 10 other Sesame Street characters.
Graphic Design
A notable feature of “Oscar” as well as the other books in this “Sesame Street Friends” series is the fun, bold, and pleasing graphic design.
I love the colors, the easy-to-read fonts, and the layout.
On the edge of the cover of each book is a column of symbols that each resembles one of the characters. The symbol for whoever is the star of that book is shown at the top. Our kid was able to pick out the Oscar, Count, and Cookie symbols easily.
However, because of some issues listed below, I would opt for other books in this series that have the same great design. Once I review the others, I will link to them and mention which are vegan-friendly.
Is “Oscar” by Andrea Posner-Sanchez Vegan-Friendly?
Unfortunately, “Oscar” is not vegan friendly. Here’s why:
First off, on the cover of the book there is a subtle background pattern made up of repeating apple cores and fish skeletons with exed out eyes. The pattern is used to invoke Oscar’s milieu of “trash.”
Yes, it’s a sad reality that the bodies of non-human animals are considered trash, but to choose this as one of only two symbols of “trash” feels dated. But, there’s more.
Of the 12 two-page spreads in the book, there are three spreads in a row (25% of the book!) that are problematic, with each worse than the last.
Dismembered Bodies
First, there’s a page with Oscar in his trash can. Scrawled on the can in yellow marker are an apple core, a fish skeleton, and a crumpled up soda can. But the next spread is where things really get dark.
Oscar is wearing a “Grouch Garbage Distributor” uniform (cute idea) and is covered in “garbage” consisting of, a banana peel, a broken spoon, some crumpled up newspaper, and at least two dead fish that have been chopped into pieces.
You can see the faces of the fish and the pink insides where they’ve been cut in half. Though the banana peel looks real, the fish appear to be well-made props.
The third of these spreads showcases the “yucky food” that Oscar likes. There’s a banana peel, a half-dozen rotting eggs, an ice cream sundae with two fish tails sticking up out of it, and then five more dead fish wrapped in newspaper with stink lines emanating from them.
You’re not supposed to think of the fish as having been alive. You’re just supposed to think “yuck!”
From a vegan standpoint alone, showing eggs and fish as food (ice cream is so easy to find vegan) is already an issue.
I could imagine someone arguing, “but, the book is saying these are yucky foods, not good foods.”
But, the book still wants you to think of them as simply “food,” and nothing more critical – like say, the body of a killed animal or products from exploited hens.
Fish Bodies as Absent Referents
In the feminist classic book, “The Sexual Politics of Meat,” philosopher Carol Jay Adams describes how Western patriarchal culture turns animals into “absent-referents.”
Pigs become “pork,” cows become “beef” or “burgers,” and an individual chicken becomes abstract “chicken.” More often than not, the food no longer resembles the animal it was made from – take burgers, nuggets, and sticks as examples. The food is also heavily seasoned to take on a new flavor.
New names, shapes, and tastes help erase the fact that these foods were made from once-living individuals. In other words, the food now only refers to itself – the animals from whose bodies it is made are absent.
Also touched on in Adams’s book – a reason that carnists (those who eat animals) often feel uncomfortable eating around even silent vegans, is that a vegan’s mere presence calls the once absent-referent – the animal whose flesh is on the table – back into mind.
The brazenness of Posner-Sanchez’s “Oscar” book is that the “yucky food” is not even disguised. The fish actually look like dead fish.
But, we’re not supposed to see these corpses and feel sad – we’re supposed to see them as a design motif, a symbol, and a humorous example of “yuck.”
Pets vs Non-Pets
The very next section focuses on Oscar’s pet worm, Slimey, who is treated as a whole individual. Slimey has a name, is shown climbing a tree outside, and later lies in a tiny bed where Oscar reads him bedtime stories.
The contrast between the treatment of Slimey versus the fish is a stark example of the difference in how society treats “pets” vs. “food animals.”
The level of cognitive dissonance the author of this book expects of children, and is actually instilling in them, by showing that some animals deserve care, and others’ dead bodies are punchlines, is really astounding.
Final Thoughts
Oscar the Grouch is one of our kid’s favorite Sesame Street characters. When we got this book, I never imagined the issues inside and so I let him read it right away, and then he wanted us to read it to him over and over.
I hoped he wouldn’t notice the fish. I’m not really sure if he did – he didn’t seem to give them much thought, and I think he’s too young for that to necessarily be a good or bad thing.
I once started to try to talk about the fish, but my kid wasn’t interested and turned the page.
In the following months he has barely reached for the book and never asked for it outright. It’s such a simple book, and while the reading flow is fine, there are very few words.
So, with or without the issues, I don’t think this book has the staying power of a lot of other board books in our collection. It’s more like a stocking stuffer or a little piece in a collection of an Oscar the Grouch aficionado.
I plan on reviewing more books in this series and will list the ones I consider vegan friendly when I come back. I also hope to find a book about Oscar that is more appropriate.
Order “Oscar” from Bookshop.org.
Order “Oscar” from Amazon.
“Oscar” by Andrea Posner-Sanchez
Vegan rating: F
Anti-speciesist rating: F
Overall rating: C (nice design and exciting for Oscar fans)