@boomerang,
boomerang wrote:
This was at the elementary school library and therefore not likely to have inappropriate subject matter in the first place. I would think that if they have a book that address' the topic (and I'm willing to bet that they do) it would be written in such a way as to be appropriate for kids.
That's my take. Mo is fairly close to the oldest age this library caters to so I don't see how it would contain books not appropriate for him. I do think that there are historical events where different historians or politicians have written material that would need context (think about a book on the holocaust written by Ahmedinejad) but I don't see the librarian as having that responsibility.
@Eva,
It is not within the purview of a librarian be it a school or public library to restrict anyone's reading material. A librarian should function in the realm of recommendation/guidance.
@boomerang,
boomerang wrote:I don't really mean the question to be specific to our situation but a general examination of what is and is not appropriate history for kids to read about.
I think almost no history is inappropriate as a subject, more a matter of how it's presented.
Same as anything else I guess.
I've been talking to sozlet about the Holocaust, slavery, the Civil War, etc., etc. for a very long time but have been adding details (and more detailed reading) commensurate with her maturity level.
@sozobe,
Quote:more a matter of how it's presented.
I am admittedly a child born during WW II, I remember quite clearly the graphic photos following the war of the concentration camps, corpses, mangled bodies etc. etc. etc. I saw those on the covers of popular magazines such as Life and Look that were found on virtually every families coffee table.
Primary schools here, that's for children up to the age of nine, have a list of abut 100 books dealing with holocaust, Nazi regime and WWII (out of more than 300 hundred, dealing with those topic for that age group). That's a list "what children should read".
(Primary schools here genially don't have an own library or just a very small one.)
Mo was wanting a book about WW 2 but one about Japan.
Last night we were reading about Iwo Jima and he had a bunch of questions about how they fortified the island that I couldn't answer so this morning we were looking through some photo books I have for pictures (other than the famous one) of Iwo Jima. There weren't many. I suggested that he ask the school librarian for a book about WW 2 battles with Japan or a book about Iwo Jima specifically.
He said (sarcastaclly) "Oh they'll just tell me it's "inappropriate" like they did the last time".
The last time turned out to be him asking for a book about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Are these inappropriate topics for a kid to read about?
@boomerang,
boomerang wrote:Mo was wanting a book about WW 2 but one about Japan.
Last night we were reading about Iwo Jima and he had a bunch of questions about how they fortified the island that I couldn't answer so this morning we were looking through some photo books I have for pictures (other than the famous one) of Iwo Jima. There weren't many. I suggested that he ask the school librarian for a book about WW 2 battles with Japan or a book about Iwo Jima specifically.
He said (sarcastaclly) "Oh they'll just tell me it's "inappropriate" like they did the last time".
The last time turned out to be him asking for a book about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Are these inappropriate topics for a kid to read about?
NO; thay r 100%
proper, and to be expected.
It was only a matter of time.
The Military Channel has programs about the fight
for Iwo Jima, from the perspective of both sides.
It has treated the subject of Japanese entrenchments there, in great detail.
I think Clint Eastwood directed
Letters from Iwo Jima on that subject, in depth,
from the Japanese perspective; nice job.
U can probably rent the movie.
He also directed
Flags of Our Fathers, on the same subject,
Iwo Jima and its entrenchments, from the American perspective.
Obviously, u can see what Google will turn up on that subject.
David
Nope. Not at all. I wish all kids had his interests. I believe kids should know about history, warts and all.
@Ceili,
Ceili wrote:Nope. Not at all. I wish all kids had his interests. I believe kids should know about history, warts and all.
It sounds to me like Mo is pretty
smart.
David
I think what bothers me was her response. She, as an adult authority of sorts in a school setting, announced to a student that an episode in history was inappropriate. That's a powerful statement.
History is not to be presented with subjective morality clauses. What's wrong with, "We don't have any." He applies his morals to it, after he gets a professional introduction and explanation of the facts surrounding the event. He'll be constructing and deconstructing history the rest of his life. But, that's for HIM to do.
Grrr.
Some good points are made here:
http://www.holocaust-trc.org/chldbook.htm
I'll post a few excerpts:
Quote:What should be in a Holocaust library for children? In the best of worlds there would be nothing, for in a child’s world a Holocaust would never happen. Even in the land of Nazi brutality, the mad notion that they were of "the master race" had to be instilled in its youth, and the enlarged capacity for evil had to be inculcated by years of indoctrination. But the Holocaust occurred, and for the sake of the future, as well as to remember the past, we want to teach children about it, in the hope that in remembering horror and in searching for the wisdom to understand it, we may assure that it will not happen again.
In offering such books to children, it is important to remember that an encounter with the Holocaust hastens the end of innocence. When children read a vivid survivor’s story that includes experiences in a concentration camp, they enter a world in which humanity is of a different nature than they had encountered until then, what Holocaust survivor Alexander Donat called the "Holocaust Kingdom." Remembering this, the selector of books for children to read will make sure that the full horror of knowing the Holocaust is postponed until greater maturity makes possible acceptance of that reality, and then, perhaps, understanding.
...
Yet we mean always to provide truth in every kind of reading material we offer children, whether history or biography or personal narrative, and especially in fiction, with its strong impact on imagination and emotion. Certainly a truthful depiction of the Holocaust cannot avoid picturing the savagery and cruelty of those times. And television and films have accustomed children to violence of all kinds. So why not present the brutal truth so that
children of today can begin to understand the sufferings of Jewish children much like themselves who endured the horrors of the Holocaust, often in fear and loneliness, torn as they were from their families and familiar surroundings?
Unfortunately, the images, invoked by word and photograph, are all too powerful, powerful enough to inspire the fear and horror that will turn them away from the very knowledge we seek to offer them. Children, in their need to protect themselves from the truths of Holocaust literature, will not experience those truths because they are too dreadful to absorb. How, then, can this dilemma be resolved?
...
Here's a recommended children's book list about the bombings that you can look for in the public library:
http://resources.primarysource.org/content.php?pid=132301&sid=1135011
@boomerang,
Quote:Last night we were reading about Iwo Jima and he had a bunch of questions about how they fortified the island that I couldn't answer
It sounds as if Mo is interested in the logistical/military aspects of the event and not the historic personal accounts of tragedy. I think that his interest level is appropriate for his age from that aspect.
Here's a children's book list about Iwo Jima and WW2 to look for from the public library:
http://www.jodavidsmeyer.com/combat/bookstore/youngreaders.html
Knowing about Japan in the Second World War (actually, from about 1923 onward) is very important. Japan became what was essentially a militaristic and totalitarian state--but there, unlike the case in Germany, the formation of a single, national political party followed the formation of a government which could not operate without the consent of the military. The Army and Navy minister had the power to veto any measures which dealt with national policy and the allocation of resources. A key provision was that the Army and Navy minister must be serving officers. The Prime Minister appointed those officers, but the Imperial Staff had the power to force the retirement of any officer--so if they did not approve of either of the officers appointed by the Prime Minister, that officer would simply be removed from the active list, and the PM would be obliged to choose a different officer. In practice, of course, the PM only appointed officers already approved by the Imperial staff. This was a unique form of totalitarian goverment in history, and understanding how it worked would give the careful student an understanding of how militarist governmennts operate, and how they dominate civilian administrations--an all too common occurance in this world.
Understanding what happened on Saipan and Iwo Jima is very important, too. Government propaganda has told the members of the armed forces and the civilian population that the Allies would have no mercy. Soldiers, sailors and Marines were told that the Americans executed prisoners. Not only did many Japanese consider it humiliating to surrender, they believed that it would avail them nothing to do so, that the Americans would simply execute them.
There was a fairly large civilian population on Saipan. As the Americans drove the Japanese to one end of the island, some of them threw themselves off the cliffs into the sea--many others who were loathe to do so were driven off the cliffs, sometimes with their children in their arms, by Imperial Marines. Very, very few Japanese soldiers and Marines were willing to surrender, and they had to be dug out of the hills, or buried alive in their caves and bunkers, or immolated with flame thowers.
Iwo Jima was just as bad in terms of the horror of the fighting, and much worse in terms of a more numerous enemy. This was a crucial part of the decision to use the atomic weapons in the summer of 1945. The horrors of the fighting on Saipan and Iwo Jima had a profound influence on the planners of Operations Olympic and Coronet. Based on previous campaigns, and in particular on the fanatical resistance on Saipan and Iwo Jima, army planners estimated 1,200,000 Allied casualties, of which more than 250,000 would be killed. For as heart-rending the decision to drop the bomb on Japanese cities was (and it was difficult, it was no cavalier decision), the prospect of a quarter of a million Allied soldiers and Marines dead in an invasion made the conclusion virtually a certainty.
And that is why it is so important to understand what happened on Saipan and Iwo Jima, and the effect it had on subsequent decisions in the war against Japan.
and then there's the issue of the "librarian" but I digress.
@boomerang,
boomerang wrote:The last time turned out to be him asking for a book about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Are these inappropriate topics for a kid to read about?
I read John Hersey's
Hiroshima in the third grade, and, apart from subsequent episodes of barely contained murderous rage, I turned out just fine.
@dyslexia,
dyslexia wrote:I am admittedly a child born during WW II, I remember quite clearly the graphic photos following the war of the concentration camps, corpses, mangled bodies etc. etc. etc. I saw those on the covers of popular magazines such as Life and Look that were found on virtually every families coffee table.
They were not on our coffee table because my father fought in WWII, and he didn't want reminders of wartime trauma lying around. But still, I saw them at school and other places. And I was a sensitive kid. When I was a teenager, there were nightly news broadcasts of casualties in Viet Nam, and magazine covers featured those graphic images.
Regardless, it was not healthy. I realized that when I was in college. I had become so used to seeing images and hearing horror stories of napalm, killing children, lost limbs, carpet bombing, etc., that seeing/listening to it didn't affect me any more. I decided that was wrong. I didn't want to be so desensitized. Those kinds of things SHOULD disturb any thinking, feeling person. So I decided to stop watching the news, stop reading those stories, stop watching those movies. It took me many years to undo the psychological damage. How I wish I had never seen those magazine photos and news broadcasts when I was young and impressionable.
@boomerang,
boomerang wrote:...The last time turned out to be him asking for a book about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Are these inappropriate topics for a kid to read about?
No, not inappropriate at all. It's natural curiosity. The librarian may have thought she was properly guiding him away from a dangerous topic, but she was wrong. She should have directed him to age-appropriate materials.
Boomer, if you ever get a chance to visit Washington, D.C. with Mo, be sure to take him to the Holocaust Museum. They do an excellent job of explaining it to children. We took SonofEva when he was about Mo's age.
