• tiramichu@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Exactly. Children’s books can cover gristly subjects just fine, the thing that makes the difference is the tone and presentation.

        Witches boiled him into a stew and ate him up with some buttered toast = fine for a children’s book

        Talking about how the witches spent weeks slowly cutting pieces off him while still alive = NOT okay!

    • Stamets@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      To be fair, I call anyone 15 and under a child. I think they probably just meant Young Adult books. I was like 10 or 11 when reading Artemis Fowl which most definitely involves a shocking amount of murder, kidnapping and torture. Also can’t say that it’s not geared towards people that age when Artemis himself is 12.

        • Stamets@lemmy.worldOP
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          1 year ago

          Right? I was so hooked on those books. And then I found the Sabriel/Abhorsen trilogy (apparently there are more now?) from Garth Nix. Fuck Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. A young girl who adopts the 7 bells of the Abhorsen, a necromancer who puts down the dead, and has to protect the kingdom in the north where magic rules and technology dies? Where she has a pet cat who is a giant demon held by the small bell around his neck? Where magic is cast via musical notes?

          FUCK. YES.

          Those things are apparently Young Adult but they are NOT. They’re for full on adults and everyone slept on them. INCREDIBLE series that I cannot recommend enough. The book opens with her resurrecting her school mates dead rabbit. I mean… come on.

          Wikipage on Sabriel

          • ZippoHippo@feddit.nl
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            1 year ago

            I read Clariel, Goldenhand and Terciel & Elinor as an adult and found them equally enjoyable as the original 3 when I was a kid. My mum is in her 60s and currently borrowing my copy of T&E. Highly recommend!

            • Stamets@lemmy.worldOP
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              1 year ago

              Goddammit. I’m already not eating the next couple days because of my cat scaring the hell out of me. Please don’t say that and add another expense to my wallet. I literally cannot afford it…

              But I do have a library near by… Goddammit I’m gonna end up disappearing for a week and reading these books.

    • flipht@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I read a YA book when I was a kid, pretty much the same plot.

      A girl was murdered, wakes up as a ghost, and has to solve her own murder to find peace.

      It also touched on suicide and self harm.

      Books targeted at kids need to be age appropriate, but at the same time, if you pick some topics that are unallowable for children all together, you’re going to wind up with a young adult who is naive and completely unprepared for the world.

    • neutron@thelemmy.club
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      1 year ago

      Nah, the book doesn’t have to be explicit on how the victim died. Death is part of life, and have been present in children’s book all the time. It will be fine.