'Bunny suicide' book withdrawn after child dies

'Bunny suicide' book withdrawn after child dies

www.irishtimes.com

Last Updated: Friday, September 12, 2008, 07:39
'Bunny suicide' book withdrawn after child dies

A spate of suicides and attempted suicides by children in China’s biggest city at the start of the school year has prompted at least one bookseller to pull a popular cartoon book off the shelves.

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This is incredibly sad but the books don't need to be pulled from the shelves. It's important that parents realise that not everything in cartoon form is for kids.

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It was a bookstore that made the decision. They can sell or not sell whatever they want.

I think this brings up a larger issue, though: kids are not 'little people'. They are children. They need protection in many cases from the things that adults take in stride. I know better than to stick my finger in a light socket or onto a hot surface. Small children do not always have this knowledge.

As such, cartoons, which children oft see as their own domain, can be particularly hazardous to children if they are intended for adults. At one time, I thought of anime movies as more or less children's movies. After all, they are cartoons, and Saturday Morning cartoons were always children's shows when I was younger. I wonder how many parents still believe this? I'm just glad that I watched a few anime movies before making the decision as to whether or not they were appropriate for my kids.

Now, I am not bashing anime, I am simply using them as an example. Other examples could be the prime time adult cartoons, such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, or the now (thankfully) forgotten Beavis and Butthead. Not all of these shows are 'evil', but all of them are definitely adult-oriented in a genre that has traditionally been seen as child-oriented. Anime pops into my mind because of the anime-inspired cartoons which are marketed at children: Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Dragonball Z (the last one I actually had to forbid my son to watch at one time).

I don't believe in censorship at any level, and mean no intent to remove any of the books or movies that are based on cartoons but either written with adult themes or are improper material for children. What I would like to see, however, is a bit of truth-in-advertising, such as a warning or age-appropriateness code on the media to alert parents who may not be as 'hip' as the authors/producers. We have similar things in the US on theater movies and video games, but they seem to be lacking on books and direct-to-DVD movies.

I salute this bookstore for taking action to hopefully prevent more needless deaths.

TheRedneck

reply to post by TheRedneck


Well said dude, have a star...

The parents should take some responsibility, but sadly all over the world there seems to be a growing phenonemon of parent apathy and trusting "society" (be it the Gove/School etc) to do the work for them.