But Leave Out The Bloody Bits

Edward is very literal. When he climbs into bed with us I say, good morning, Edward, how did you sleep?

He gets a faint crease in his brow as he considers the question and then says, "I slept in my race car bed under my blue blanket."

Ah. Well. Yes.

When Caroline joins us half an hour later she says, "I slept very well thank you Mommy. How did you sleep?" If she's feeling a little picante she might add, "Dormir Mama? Bueno?" Never let it be said that almost complete ignorance of the Spanish language ever deters her from speaking it. She is like a British tourist from the 1920s; all stout constitution, easy phrases and an indomitable sense of her own right to be understood. I find her vastly entertaining and I now spend hours looking up words for her after my admission that I had no idea how to say "turkey" in Spanish led to her lying flat on the kitchen floor, staring wordlessly at the ceiling while tears trickled down her cheeks. It was the most effective tantrum, like, ever. I actually felt guilty.

(Pavo! Donde esta el pavo? El pavo esta en el patio. Poor Caroline. I took French. Steve took first year Spanish, true, but he took it four times. And Patrick thinks everyone should speak English; which either means he is a curmudgeon ahead of his time or the modern day isolationists are tracking with third graders. Did you know that a previous iteration called themselves the Know Nothing Party? They were worried to death about the Irish and all the... parades they might throw. or something.)

In truth Caroline sleeps like a whirling dervish and every few days she changes her mind about how she wants to do this. Sometimes it is upside-down on her chair with her head hanging over the edge. Sometimes she crashes in her fairy tent. I've found her alseep under her bed and I have found her in a dresser drawer. For a week she slept in her closet in a nest constructed out of old baby clothes. Lately she has taken as many blankets as she can find, laid them on the floor next to her bed and then she sleeps on top of them wrapped in a towel.

As Caroline gets older we will need to actively find safe ways for her to thrill seek, that's all I'm saying. The child likes experiences.

My mom and my brother and his family start arriving today and they will be here through the weekend. I'm very excited - it's been more than a year since we've all been together. I'm also a little disorganized - I started considering things like pillows this morning and realized that the last time we had a full house we also had two proto-people in cribs and now Caroline and Edward are full-fledged lodgers and they use enough bedding for six (see Caroline, above) so I have to figure out what I am going to do. Clearly Caroline will be giving up the princess and the pea act while our guests are here but even so I'm not sure I have enough sheets and whatnot. And I haven't been grocery shopping in a while so tonight is looking like a Top Chef episode where they are given a jar of pickled okra, a bottle of maple syrup and a wok. And Saturday we're hosting an egg hunt/dinner thing for my family plus some friends and I haven't worked out any details for that either. And last night I chipped my front tooth (a year ago I chipped the other front tooth on a Charms Blowpop - this time I did it walking up the stairs) so I have an emergency dental appointment in.... damn it. Forty minutes.

So this is less of a post than a Mad Lib in which I start a topic and you help me finish it in the comments. The topic is: would you read the actual words in a violent children's book or would you fumble for an explanation of the pictures that involves less death?

What, you say? You ask if there is such a thing as a violent picture book?

Funny you should mention it. I took Caroline and Edward to the library yesterday where they picked out some books, among them a couple of things by Lucy Cousins. You know Lucy Cousins, she writes and illustrates books about Maisy the mouse and her monosyllabic friends. The pictures look so simple you think you could do it yourself until you try to paint a mouse vacuuming and then you realize that there is actually an art to her art. Anyway, Caroline is always up for a nice Maisy book so we threw some into the bag and when we got home I saw that one of them was actually a collection of eight classic fairy tales illustrated by Cousins and I thought, oh how nice, classic fairy tales.

So I started with Red Riding Hood and they were, indeed, classic - extremely classic - as exemplified by page 17 where the wolf swallows the grandmother. Then he eats Red Riding Hood and then the woodsman appears and cuts off the wolf's head which goes flying - I kid you not - onto the next page; which I suppose is a happy ending for everyone except the wolf because RR and her grandmother leap out of the wolf (undigested - how nice) like Zeus and his siblings.

Gruesome. Maisy! Who would have thought the little mouse was so bloodthirsty?

I do know that this is how the stories actually went - back when the Brothers Grimm trotted from mountain to mountain collecting folk tales - just as I know that in the real Little Mermaid she commits suicide (can you imagine the 20th anniversary DVD from Disney, now with alternate ending.) But I was shocked to find it in a book whose pictures so clearly spoke to very little kids. And I fudged the story and flipped past the page as fast as I could and when the next wolf (a relation perhaps) started eating the three little pigs I lied and said that they ran to the airport and when the third little pig made wolf stew I said he was getting a bath.

So that's my topic for the day and to broaden it a bit I guess I feel like I insulate my children from unpleasantness far more than I was ever sheltered and I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not. I grew up watching the nightly news and I grew up just fine (although perhaps a little nervous about nuclear proliferation) and one could argue that generations of German children knew exactly what happened to those pigs and they turned out fine too (I mean, apart from starting a couple of world wars.)

Would you have read the actual descriptions to three year olds? Do you think children should be told about tsunamis and reactors and famines? Are children today more sheltered than previously and is that a good thing why or why not use your blue books.

PS Damn tooth.

PPS My family is coming! WHEEEEEE!

PPPS I got Muzzy from the library and it has got to be the WEIRDEST set of videos ever created. That said, Caroline loves them. Any suggestions for Spanish language stuff for her? CDs or Dvds?

Comments

[Gina]

I think its fine to skip the gruesome stuff. Let them be protected for now... it won't last long, unfortunately. I like to read my kids "Chrysanthemum" by ohhh... whatever that author is Kevin Henkes? Anyways there is one book by him where the girl gets a little brother and throughout the entire book she whispers to him that she hates him and that's he's ugly. Naturally the story has a good ending, but I never read it to the kids because I hate it.

[Alicia Louise]

I grew up on violent, classic fairytales and seem to be none the worse for wear because of it, with the exception of a love for stories so strong that it led me to get an Honours degree in English Literature. So maybe there was a little damage.

[Kathleen]

Ha ha! I checked out that same book from the library! And had the same reaction! I went from thinking, "Oh, Lucy Cousins...so safe and simple" to "And then the wolf...AHHHHHHHHH!" and made up the rest of the story. Some kids can totally handle scary stories. My son is not one of those kids. He wouldn't enjoy the stories and he would be in my bed for a month trying to recover from the trauma. I am all for glossing over the scary bits (and NEVER reading that book again) until your kids will actually enjoy the scary stuff.

[Sarah]

I too shelter my toddler. He's easily freaked, has a crazy good memory, and as an adult, I have a hard time shaking violence. So when grandpa gave him a book about Nemo, I wanted to trash it. But my little buddy loves the gift so I just look at pictures and refuse to read words. Ha! I win! I'm not reading my son a book about a boy fish whose mama dies! No way no how.

As for perspective, I was exposed to scary stuff and had nightmares. No gracias as Caroline would say. :)

[Maria]

Do I think kids are more sheltered today? Sure. Do I think it's a bad thing when they're three? No. All sorts of things start happening anyway when their doors get closed at night and the wheels start turning (I was going to say "while lying there," but I suppose Caroline is dismantling furniture so she can sleep on a bed of screws or something).

I clean up the versions just to avoid the nightmares that may come later. My daughter is four, saw a puppet show with a big bad wolf and has to be reassured at least a few times a week that a big bad wolf will not enter the neighborhood, her home, and then her room and eat her. When I explain that puppets aren't real, she looks at me like I'm a complete moron. Fiction/non, animated/puppet/real all meld together in her world or, at least, in her head at night.

Lucy Cousins would be going back to the library ASAP for me. And it would be "lost" until it got there.

Now Brothers Grimm stories for Patrick's age? Very cool. I love fairy tales and used to teach composition starting with different versions of Cinderella. It's fun to watch the Disney-only kids get introduced to a version where the stepmother gets turned into soup.

[Melospiza]

I have to preface any comment I make on this subject by noting that one of my favorite pretend games when I was three/four was to put on my dad's boots and pretend I was Snow White's wicked stepmother being forced to dance to death at the wedding. I was rather offended by Disney's omission of that element of the story.

So...well, yes, I *do* tend to read the violent parts of fairy tales. And perhaps I had a late-developing sense of empathy (VERY POSSIBLE), but for the most part, the violent things that happened in books never seemed like violent things that could happen to me. Now I am horrified when I read about Hansel and Gretel's stepmother (or in some versions, their MOTHER) leaving them in the woods to starve, or the little prepubescent Snow White being sent into te woods with a strange man to do with what he will (so long as he brings back her heart in a box), or the witch showing up at Rapunzel's birthing suite and carrying the child off (that KILLS me). But back then these just seemed like routine details--and not always very interesting details, even. Unlike the red-hot iron boots.

[Beth]

We did both versions of fairy tales, and I would ask at the start what they wanted. There was a video of the 3 Little Pigs where the dumb ones get eaten and then the wolf becomes stew. So even when I was telling stories at night I'd ask upfront if he wanted the stew version; sometimes he was feeling bloodthirsty and sometimes it was all Disney sweetness.

[Elliesee]

My short answer is, Fairy tales are ok, the News not so much! I grew up with the Grimm's fairy tale so I find the Disney version quite ridiculous. I have an old ''Three little pigs'' where the oldest pig eats the wolf that ate his brother; my 4 years old did notice that ''he is eating his brothers!!'' but found it hilarious. For that last story I am used to a lot of alternate ending so that original one surprised me. The Beatrix Potter books are hard to read to young children; except ''Two bad mice'' there is always a rabbit smoking or animals beating each others. My sanity saving tip for the long, wordy Disney books (zzz...) is to read only the first sentence of each page. So far so good!

[Amanda]

I have the Kevin Henkes book mentioned above, where the big sister tells the new baby brother (and anyone who will listen) how awful he is. I really don't like it and I think it's successfully been lost.

We also skip past the first chapter (on the DVD) of Nemo. So it starts with Nemo waking up on his first day of school. No explanation of where mom is, and my 4.5yo has never questioned it.

We talked to the 4.5yo a fair amount about death (my MIL passed away when he was very small, but it comes up a lot). The last time we read "love you forever" he asked if the mom died at the end. So we prefer to expose him to death in a more realistic way, and it's about people we love and care for and how we miss them. Less about the violent deaths commonly portrayed in the media. I feel like once he has a solid handle on the concept of death, he'll be better prepared for the crazy violence/death he'll absorb in books, movies, TV, etc.

Plus he remembers everything and is a pretty sensitive kid. So I feel like it's OK to protect that for a little longer.

[Steph]

I don't think I would read the violent parts to a 3 year old.
My 9 year old daughter comes home from school talking about tsunamis and earthquakes and it tends to freak my 5 year old son out.
We have enough sleep issues without adding nightmares to the mix.

[Laura J]

I personally don't think there's anything wrong with a little editing, some children don't have a problem with anything that's a little macabre, but some do. I was a sensitive child who had nightmares books and U rated films one of which was the BFG.

I also had my own Muzzy set and I thought it was weird 20ish years ago, but it helped me with learning French.

[Karen]

I really wish you would write a book... or at least a tv sitcom. :) I love the way you write, and I always look forward to hearing about your kids' latest adverntures. Thanks.

[~Sacha]

I have no children, so, please, grain of salt, yada yada. But I have less of a problem with the violence in old fairy tales and more of a problem with gender constructions. Women weak, evil etc. Men strong, saviors blah blah blah. That seems more insidious to me than a wolf got eaten....

Course, I've never been woken up by a toddler having nightmares.

[Connie]

I saw this one featured. It is for 0-5 years old, which means Caroline has probably already advanced beyond them.

http://www.coolmompicks.com/2007/12/ordering_french_fries_isnt_act.php

[Anne]

I got the first Babar book from the library for my 2.5yo and was shocked when I read it, having forgotten that Babar's mother is shot by poachers on the first page ... I fudged and said Babar's mother was lying on the ground because she was sick.

My son is obsessed with Superman, Batman, Spiderman etc. right now, and my mother gave him a bunch of books, to my great irritation, because they are full of violence. I played it straight at first and even read them dramatically -- "Bam! Pow! Superman hit the bad guy and he fell on the ground!" -- but then I noticed that my son's imaginary play suddenly involved a lot of hitting, naturally. So now when I read them I embroider a lot: "Superman didn't want to hit the bad guy but he had to stop him from running away, so he hit him once and then handed him over to the police, and he felt really bad about it because he didn't like hurting anyone, but it was the only way to save his friends ..."

[bethany actually]

I think it really depends on the kids. I would guess, from your descriptions of your kids, that Caroline might be able to handle a little mild violence without it upsetting her delicate (ha!) constitution, whereas Edward might be a tad more bothered by it due to his literal nature.

I agree with some of the previous commenters that there is nothing wrong with sheltering kids from life's harsh realities when they're little. We had to teach my daughter about death when she was 3 because one of her grandparents died, but given the choice I probably wouldn't have talked to her about it till she was a bit older.

[ellbee]

I would say that it depends on the personality of the child. I know that my parents were willing to let me read the "real" version of fairy tales, and I know that by sixth grade I was taking Stephen King books to school for reading time. (Heh. My teacher's eyes about bugged out of his head when I whipped out a hardback copy of The Shining.) My best friend, however, couldn't handle even those Goosebumps books by R.L. Stine...it was all Disney all the time at her house.

[elsimom]

I'm not sure, because my oldest daughter (who I was very protective of - and who was so cautious as a preschooler that the monkeys in Jungle Book upset her) LOVES this weird book called Heckedy Peg - and has been bringing it home periodically since she was a kindergartner. The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous, but the story is a bizarre cautionary tale about letting people into the house and disobeying your parents (a witch steals the children and turns them into food while the mother is at the market). At one point the mother tricks the witch into believing that she has cut off her own feet - ?????
By the time we got to the third child, the older ones were into scarier fare, so we just read the scary stuff with her around.

I had a similar question when reading Tale of Desperaux outloud. Dark stuff, some of that.

News on the other hand - no TV news with the kids. The older ones tend to hear about the really big stuff at school, and we can talk about that. Sometimes they will read a headline of the newspaper and express interest. But whenever we move away from the limits on TV news, we find ourselves with a lot of explaining about why something happened one place, but will likely not happen to us (example: shooting in Arizona - could offer very little on that one). I figure that by the time they can actually read the news, they can begin to understand and discuss, and we kind of let them take the lead.

[Lawmommy]

I have an entire Bachelor's Degree in French and I don't think I remember how to say "turkey" in that language, much less one I never studied...oh, wait, is it dindon? Maybe? Anyway, hats off to you for encouraging multi-lingualism...:-)

[sueinithaca]

I think it depends on the kid. Mine aren't bothered (on a therapy-needing level) by the facts of life - they'll happily slaughter chickens for dinner if given the opportunity, and more than once have asked to dissect roadkill. My daughter, though, is totally freaked out by any fictional violence and would run for the hill if we read her any classic fairy tails (she's 6) - she's a very literal person, and can cope with literal, actual death, but when those made-up people start doing things to each other, there's no telling what will come next! They don't have to follow the laws of physics! Anything can happen! Chaos! Calamity!
She's also very upset by NPR. I think Japan and libya are far enough away that they may as well be made up, to her, and so they fall under the same category as fiction.
My younger one, though, would be totally fine with the fairy tale violence, and would probably root for the wolf.

[Rachel]

Yummy! I have a three year old, and I finally returned that one to the library because he would not stop getting out of bed in the middle of the night to 'read it' hisself. And...yes, I read the words. He particularly delights in hungry wolves.
I would put that firmly in another category from tsunamis. We do not talk about death or nuclear reactors. We do engage in talk of violent animals. So, yes on Peter Rabbit no on Hunger Games.
I am quite sure the decision about 'editing' picture book text could be decided based on your individual child's temperment.

[Alexis]

I like Beth's idea with two versions of the stories. I don't think that editing is a good thing, especially with children's stories. I also agree with Rachel in that nuclear reactors and tsunamis are a totally different animal than a story.

Please don't take this personally, seriously, because all I see from you is good parenting. Do you remember that Oriental mother in the news a few months back who didn't even let her kids have sleepovers? "Tiger Mom"? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html I don't agree with all of what she said and was horrified of the entire concept until I read the article. She did made a good point when she said that Chinese mothers "assume strength, not fragility" of their children. Why not give your kids the benefit of the doubt?

[victoria]

Did you ever read Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment? He argues that the classic, violent children's fairy tales help children master their urges/fears.

Also, I was always persuaded by Pauline Kael's defense of Raiders of the Lost Arl's suitability for children despite some of the gory scenes.

Kael pointed out that children are terrified of losing their mother. The Disney movies Babmi and Dumbbo are profoundly upsetting to children. (I still can't handle those movies, personally, seeing as how cruelty to animals features largely in both.)

Gore, on the other hand, may be gross or fascinating to children, but it is not threatening to them in the same way that losing their mother is.

[Ememby.wordpress.com]

We recently received a book of fairy tales from family in Australia and there were many naked children in the illustrations. And I'm not weird about nudity but my own little cherub was too preoccupied with pointing out "their penises mom, look at their penises" that I had to cull that one from the rotation. I definitely wouldn't have read the violent descriptions to him at this point because he would perseverate on it, but next year, maybe... it all depends on what you think they can handle.

"The child likes experiences." Made my day!

[Emily]

My 7 year old son is very much into baseball and has loved reading biographies of the great players. When he was in kindergarten, he picked out a children's book bio of Roberto Clemente. Perhaps I should have known about his untimely death in a plane crash but I didn't. When I got to the last page and realized this, I improvised another, much less somber ending to poor Mr. Clemente's life. I also wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do. Now that he is nearing 8, I would read the book as it is written. But at 5, I guess I didn't see the point of scaring him.

With fairy tales, the imagary can be pretty scary. My 5 year old daughter asked me to throw away a book she had with an image of a scary witch in it (some version of Sleeping Beauty). I think we did give that one away.

[plantingoaks]

Oh my goodness, the melting faces in Raiders of the Lost Ark scared the bewilikers out of me when I was probably at least 10.

Then again, I was an abnormally easily disturbed child. Related to an overactive imagination I would guess.

[tash]

I think it depends on the Kid(s). I did (read grim things to Bella), and obviously we had a kinda nasty death experience to muddle through in real life when she was a toddler, so it made Barbar much less traumatic. One of my favorite books as a child (and now one of Bella's) is Tomi Ungerer's "Zerelda's Ogre" which deals with cannibalism. It's actually a foodie book, I've decided.

Obviously, YMMV per child so I don't think there's a yes/no answer really. And I still sort of edit the news for Bella, even if she's a pro at death and destruction.

[Anne]

I tend to "gloss" over the most gruesome, hideous things that come to my daughter's attention (she's four and a half), both because she's a sensitive soul, and because of my feeling that she will learn all about these things in due time. However, last year one of her friends drowned while on vacation, and I had to quickly decide how to handle telling her that he would never be able to come back to school. Basically, I decided to go with the "child-led" philosophy, and briefly but honestly answered any questions she had, and that seemed to work fairly well. It was both a blessing and a curse that, at the time, she was developmentally unable to grasp the concept of "permanence," and would keep saying, "Mom, when D comes back from being drownded...." It was a relief to ME that she didn't have to cope with more "adult-like" grief, but every time she brought it up it was like a knife in my heart.

Anyway. Sorry to hijack the comments. I think in general, it depends in great part on the child--are they terrified or interested in "blood and guts"? I also agree with other commenters that there are differences in being able to tell your kid that it's "just a story," or having to explain that, yes, thousands of people were swept away in a tidal wave and will never be found again.

[Lisame]

OH Julia! How I love your writing and your children. Today, however, I love your readers! You guys are just delicious. I wanted to have wine with each of you about this subject.

My two cents. Read The Shining to Caroline but not to Edward. They are just not the same person. Both are so very likeable but sensitivies being what they are...

Also, prepare yourself. As teenagers I believe she will terrorize him. Shame. As he is a living doll.

[Cat]

Oh we read that very same book last night! When I first bought it for G (at the school book fair!) we were equally horrified at red riding hood and didn't pick that book up again for 18 months! And he still wanted to skip red riding hood. When we read the pigs I just told him that wasn't how it was when I'd heard the story before!!! He's not so sensitive at 5.5 as he was at just 4. Luckily.

[Tine]

"a jar of pickled okra, a bottle of maple syrup and a wok" -- I laughed out loud at this. That's about what's left in my pantry right now. Got any ideas for me? ;)

I am awestruck at your ability to just...let Caroline be Caroline. I would be all over micromanaging her sleep habits. And I would probably regret it, too!

Fairy tales: I prefer to let them stand (or not) on their own merits. I might remind the listener that this is a PRETEND story. I might also exclaim over the preposterousness/horror/whatever. But I let the story be.

[Julie]

I agree that it depends on the kid. I used to skip the barracuda eating the mother in Finding Nemo, too, until my parents showed the movie to my kids, from the beginning, and that turned into their favorite part of the movie (naturally). Later, we happened upon a Hansel and Gretal book that I thought I'd edit as I read, but ended up reading it literally. They love it, too, and act it out. They aren't bothered by any of the violence I read in books. BUT, after watching the news a few weeks ago, my son wakes up in screaming fits swearing he feels an earthquake. It is far harder to explain away the bad things that happen in real life, such as tsunamis and earthquakes.

Have fun with your family in town! Yay!

[Kate]

Let's just say I was pissed when my MIL gave my kids Bambi. So yes, I totally like to gloss over the scary/traumatic/disgusting parts of stories. But, I think that's more due to the fact that my head would likely explode from all of the "whys" my four-year-old would hurl at me regarding any little gory detail. I could maybe handle the first or second iteration, but by the fourth or fifth "why", you can get into some heavy stuff.

[Heather]

My 2.5 blind picks books at the library. If I chose one for him he refers to it all week as the book "mom wants" ... so yeah. Well read in the first two shelves of the kids section.

Stories that go awry I start saying that I don't like right away (because he still cares what I think) and I can turn him away but with scary stuff I'll stop and ask what it looks like. He'll take it to sick and/or tired because he doesn't really grok dead yet.

[Clarabella]

OMG, my son LOVES Muzzy. My Dad is German & bought it for my siblings & I when WE were kids, ahem, decades and decades ago to help learn the language, and he (Dad/Opa) started showing them to The Boy on a visit recently & now he is ADDICTED. It did not occur to me to look for them at the library. Did you find them on DVD? B/C that's another problem for us. Dad/Opa has them on VHS, & we no longer have a VCR. For now, we look them up on YouTube, but that leads to tantrums over the iPad, and it's just unpleasant. Anyhow, I thought my little dude was the only one. Incidentally, he wants to be Corvax (sp?) for Halloween & runs around yelling "NO! I AM CLEVAH!"

[Sarah]

You must get her these books:

No More, Por Favor by Susan Middleton Elya

and

Oh No, Gotta Go! also by Susan Middleton

Great books with Spanish all up in the text. You'll all love them!

[Alyssa]

You never know what will disturb a kid. Mine liked that Lucy Cousins book and the Secret of NIMH movie at four (I had forgotten about the rats literally stabbing each other in the back), but last month she got freaked out by Fantastic Voyage and we had to turn it off. I agree with the other commenters that Caroline can probably handle more than Edward - the problem then comes when he starts talking about whatever and she pipes up "THAT'S not how that story goes!"

Also:

"Lately she has taken as many blankets as she can find, laid them on the floor next to her bed and then she sleeps on top of them wrapped in a towel."

Apparently Caroline and Miranda were separated at birth - despite the 5-year, 1200-mile difference.

[Jen]

We probably did this the most with the oldest child -- he was the one who would find "scary" music during a movie preview to be enough to make him hold his ears and curl up in a ball, telling us to let him know when it was over.

His 3 year younger brother saw his opportunity and would watch or listen to anything, just to prove he could. He also puttered around listening to older kid/more violent/dramatic stories when they were read to his brother.

Currently? Oldest is still quite risk-averse (at 20). I like the caution part, because boys are just, well, dumb about a lot of things even if they're smart. But then again, I worry that his laid back, very modest style will leave him unemployed and reading literature on park benches waiting for someone to notice him, sit down, engage him in an intellectual discussion and then offer him a job. It just seems so unlikely (and hasn't worked well for me).

Second child is much more likely to toot his own horn (appropriately) and less likely to hang back and be the most cautious. I think it'll help him in college interviews and getting jobs, for sure. He certainly was exposed to more things, earlier than his brother, since it was, you know, more around and he desperately wanted to erase those 3 years from the age of 6 months on.

BUT, did any of this have to do with our censoring/not censoring reading materials? Probably not. I'd say it's about 74% genetic, 24% the order they were born and how they interacted and 2% our parenting decisions. But, I still remember having to make omissions regarding Ma in the Little House books and then having discussions about why she acted the way she did.

[G]

I expurgate constantly. Babar? My heavens. I read it aloud once and spent the next year explaining that it was a mistake and his mother was ill and went to heaven.
Life is hard enough and my (now) 7 yo has a mind like a steel trap and is sensitive as a fainting plant!

[Jen]

Just reread my comment (shouldn't do that) and wanted to add that we were MUCH more likely to censor or not allow movies.

In books, it's much more in the kid's head -- it's harder to make mental pictures of things that you really don't understand or can't quite picture. Whereas on the screen it's all there and there's no personalizing of the visuals.

So, maybe that's my suggestion -- read them the stories sans the graphic pictures! Have them draw or describe their own pictures, at least you'd get a couple great posts with those!

[Jan]

Three Spanish suggestions

(Ole and Play, just out)
http://www.hispanictips.com/2011/04/19/don-quixote-frida-kahlo-christopher-columbus-and-pablo-picasso-teach-spanish-to-children-on-%E2%80%9Coleplay%E2%80%9D-a-cd-on-which-gaby-moreno-and-carlos-barroso-perform/

http://www.amazon.com/doble-amigos-Twice-Many-Friends/dp/B0000AUHRL
(you can preview these songs on the Amazon site)
Young Audiences
"El Doble de Amigos/Twice as Many Friends" — Sol y Canto’s bilingual and interactive musical fiesta features toe-tapping plena, son, calypso, reggae and more! Featuring songs from their multiple award-winning children’s CD of the same name, Twice as Many Friends/El doble de amigos concerts invite incessant singing and dancing with infectious, be-bopping songs, sparkling vocal harmonies, and high energy sound. Created for grade school children and their parents, the music consists of original songs by musical director/composer Brian Amador and perennial favorites from Latin America and the U.S. Songs concentrate on early development experiences for families interested in their children acquiring Spanish as a second language, as well as for Latino families and bilingual families who wish to promote use of Spanish at home. The songs address topics from counting numbers to naming the days of the week, parts of the body, self-esteem, the environment, peace, flying kites, celebrating bilingualism and more. Educational activity ideas for teachers and parents are available in Sol y Canto’s CD booklet and a free bilingual educational guide is available at www.solycanto.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Books-for-Kids/lm/R10RIK0ITJX86K

[jen]

Oh I can commiserate. I've promptly shut several books after thinking how did this get published as a children's book. So I don't think there is anything wrong with ah paraphrasing and glossing, especially at this age.

Rosetta what's it for Caroline? She seems...advanced.

[Catherine]

Aprende con Sesame! Sesame Street in Spanish. A quick google got me here, http://learningspanishblog.com/sesame-street-in-spanish/. I re-took Spanish last year for fun at the community college, la profesora highly recommended Sesame Street.

[Catherine]

Also, our local barnes & noble has a section of children's book written in both spanish & english ... litle red riding hood and the sort. I do not think the wolves head is chopped off and grandma and LLRH jump out. It's like Canterbury Tales in the OE and modern.

[Christine]

Max prefers non-fiction, so even at 6 it's a non-issue, although he's much more bothered by violence in books overall. Julia, though, can handle the hard stuff even at 3.

I was always a hard core fairy-tale girl. And I mostly turned out fine! Anything I do with a scalpel is state sanctioned and I'm paid for it.

[June]

My son is 2 1/2 and not easily fazed by books. Unlike big scary dogs, or other small children being all friendly up in his face. So I personally can afford to be scornful of the watered-down fairy tale versions where Grandmother Hides Under The Bed and LRRH just gets a good Scaring. I'm in love with Trina Schart Hyman's (tragically out of print) beautiful version of Little Red, and so is my little guy.

[June]

Oh and p.s., we watched Muzzy in grade school and isn't it hilarious?

P.P.S. Victoria -- but wasn't Bettelheim also adamant that autism was caused by Really Mean Mothers? So, you know. Not letting him babysit.

[Pam L]

Once, and only once, when Paul was youngish, maybe 6? we ran out of library books and I grabbed the Grimm's Fairy Tales . Obviously I had completely lost my head forgotten how tragic and violent these stories were. My sisters and I grew up on similar stories where people were always being eaten by rolls and wolves and it never bothered me. But when I tried to read 3 stories and didn't get past the 2nd paragraph in any of them my son said "OK, you can stop reading now. He said he would have nightmares if I continued. So now, I didn't try to change the wording to make the book more palatable, but he went to bed without a book that night.

[Jan]

Absolutely totally kids are more sheltered now than we were. I'm OK with that, and so are my kids. In fact, my husband and I, good and tired of Cars, a.k.a. The Only Movie That Shall Be Watched, have tried a couple of other (we thought very tame) films, only to be told in no uncertain terms by the 5 and 6 year old contingent, that they are TOO SCARY!! (Accompanied, sometimes, by actual tears and a request to go to bed early instead of being subjected to the torture of Monsters, Inc.)

[AnnaN]

I grew up with the original, vividly drawn Grimmm's Fairy Tales. Never phased me as I knew it was a fairy tale and that these things didn't happen. What DID scare me were the realistic/real life books from 3rd grade and on. One sticks in mind that my school library had of a child who was abducted, killed and whose body was concealed in a large sack in the trunk of a car. I don't think the librarian had a clue as the book was described on the jacket as a case of mistaken identity and mystery and started out as such until it took this violently graphic turn halfway through.

Actually, I think you can never know what will freak out a child. My sis loved B horror films as a young child but was too afraid to fall asleep at night when she first heard that one prayer, "now I lay me down to sleep".