From: Norma Jean <nsawicki>
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 19:14:43 -0400

I appreciate Monica's concern about the picture book crowd being too young for books about the Holocaust but I disagree. This is a country in which young children grow up playing romantic games about cowboys and Indians...cops and robbers...war games....when there is nothing romantic about being shot at, or shooting someone. And then there is "friendly fire," the accepted euphemism for being dead...as if being killed by one's comrade is any different than being dead by a bullet fired by an enemy.

The Holocaust is history/real...just as the current "ethnic cleansing" in Iraq is real, as is the war, 9/11, and a host of other horrors. Our geographical isolation permits a romantic view of war that folk in other countries do not enjoy. If picture books about the Holocaust can put a dent in "those" childhood games/assumptions...I say, kudos...to the writers, the publishers, and the folk who introduce them to young children. Norma Jean
Received on Wed 19 Apr 2006 06:14:43 PM CDT