One of our colleagues at Sharing-Books brought to our attention this article on the BBC site about drawing of violent images by boys. We thought you might find it of interest.

As a child I never experienced or witnessed violence, yet I was always fascinated by war movies, western stories and everything related to fighting. I remember drawing armies and combat images like the ones described in this article.

Yet as parents we really made an effort to keep violent images away from our children and we distracted or guided them in a different direction if they drew violent scenes.

Of course in the case of Sharing-Books, our contribution guidelines do not welcome books with violent images. This was chosen out of our desire for good content as parents but I must admit there was also a certain amount of political correctness in our choice.

This choice is a bit of a challenge as we build our online library of classic books. Many of them are rather dark and often violent. For example, we have scanned and uploaded some of the stories that come from a family book I grew up with, a 1892 edition of the Contes de Perrault written in 1645. This original version of the Little Red Riding Hood (in French) ends in a bloodbath with both the grandmother and the child killed by the wolf. I have not yet uploaded the scan of Blue Beard which features a murder with a very realistic image.

This is an interesting topic in the context of the emerging "maleness malaise" that is discussed by many sociologists. See for example the books by Dr. Michael Thompson.

We are not the experts but we hope you see value in thinking this topic through as parents and/or as book creators.

Labels: children books, parenting, violence