2.24.2010

Epically violent, epically okay?

Violence in children's books is most likely bad. But is it ok if it has epic, historical, mythical background? Some say yes!
Realising that grim, wrist-deep violence in books for children and teenagers seems OK to me if it comes with an epic or mythological pedigree doesn't make me proud of myself – it's a perspective as reductive and unhelpful as the Mail's kneejerk reaction to books with "knife" in the title. One day I'll wake up all salt-and-peppery, steel-rimmed as to pince-nez, and start two-year-old Tarquin on the Iliad in the original Greek before locking myself in my study with hard liquor and Robert Muchamore. But I still feel that classically epic violence in books for children – loosed knees, starting eyeballs, gouting blood and the like – can be justified and balanced by epic scope.
The lesson here is that if you have historical backing, you can depict terrible, terrible things. Yep. That's what I took away from that.

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