The Horrors of History – what do we tell the children?
Although my readers are young, they are sophisticated in many ways. On their televisions they view war as it happens in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have seen the violence of the Arab Spring with people left homeless, their families destroyed - but I asked myself where should I draw the line in a book about WW2? I simply decided to avoid the more horrific happenings which could traumatise my readers. Not avoiding the truth but treading somewhat carefully.
Soon after the first draft of the book was completed, a librarian friend asked if I’d read Morris Gleiztman’s Once and Then. I hadn’t but I knew him as a wickedly funny writer for my readers’ age group. I bought the book and settled down to an enjoyable read.
‘Once I was living in an orphanage in the mountains and I shouldn’t have been and I almost caused a riot. It was because of the carrot.’
So began the story in Morris Gleiztman’s delightful, inimitable style which would surely draw in any nine or ten year old. I was already hooked.
This book is set in WW2 and is told in the voice of Felix, an achingly naïve little Jewish boy. But the author soon takes the reader into the horrors of Germany in WW2 , seeing terrifying events through Felix’s innocent eyes. People being captured and shot. A river running blood. Seeing a young friend and his surrogate mother hanging by their necks in the town square. I read on and I felt bad. Really bad. And if I felt bad, what about the nine or ten year old? Although the book is beautifully crafted and elegantly written, this cannot make up for scenes of horror one after another. I’m not saying that we always need happy endings. But I believe that to leave children without hope, is unforgivable.
And this is the reason why I am writing this blog. I am asking the question, where do we draw the line? Is it right, that a book written for young children can be without hope? Do we as writers not owe it to young children to exercise duty of care? To use the equivalent of a ‘nine o’ clock watershed’? I think we do.
Barbara Mitchelhill
I’d already written this blog when I read Katherine Langrish’s blog posted on September 5th on Torture as Entertainment and I agreed with everything she said. But I decided to give you all a double dose of this subject by telling it as it happened to me.
I had never written about WW2 before starting my novel Run Rabbit Run and I gave a great deal of thought as to how much detail of those gruesome years I should reveal to children of 9 to 13 years.
Although my readers are young, they are sophisticated in many ways. On their televisions they view war as it happens in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have seen the violence of the Arab Spring with people left homeless, their families destroyed - but I asked myself where should I draw the line in a book about WW2? I simply decided to avoid the more horrific happenings which could traumatise my readers. Not avoiding the truth but treading somewhat carefully.
Soon after the first draft of the book was completed, a librarian friend asked if I’d read Morris Gleiztman’s Once and Then. I hadn’t but I knew him as a wickedly funny writer for my readers’ age group. I bought the book and settled down to an enjoyable read.
‘Once I was living in an orphanage in the mountains and I shouldn’t have been and I almost caused a riot. It was because of the carrot.’
So began the story in Morris Gleiztman’s delightful, inimitable style which would surely draw in any nine or ten year old. I was already hooked.
This book is set in WW2 and is told in the voice of Felix, an achingly naïve little Jewish boy. But the author soon takes the reader into the horrors of Germany in WW2 , seeing terrifying events through Felix’s innocent eyes. People being captured and shot. A river running blood. Seeing a young friend and his surrogate mother hanging by their necks in the town square. I read on and I felt bad. Really bad. And if I felt bad, what about the nine or ten year old? Although the book is beautifully crafted and elegantly written, this cannot make up for scenes of horror one after another. I’m not saying that we always need happy endings. But I believe that to leave children without hope, is unforgivable.
Michael Morpurgo has written many books for this age group on the subject of the two World Wars and does not hold back from telling the hard truths of conflict. Some of his books do not have happy endings. Some leave the reader feeling sad – but, I believe, not traumatised.
As I came to the final chapter of Once and Then, I hoped (oh how I hoped!) that Felix would find a refuge and someone to protect him. Surely, surely the relentless horror must come to an end, I said to myself. But no. In the last pages, I found that Felix had been living in a hiding hole for three months, his legs growing weaker and his eye sight failing.
End of story.
End of story.
And this is the reason why I am writing this blog. I am asking the question, where do we draw the line? Is it right, that a book written for young children can be without hope? Do we as writers not owe it to young children to exercise duty of care? To use the equivalent of a ‘nine o’ clock watershed’? I think we do.
