Are Children’s Book Authors All Vegetarians?
Perhaps it’s just our tendency to anthropomorphize every animal we draw in a picture book. Or perhaps the theory that early humans really evolved as prey species more than predators holds water and we have some innate loyalty for the home team despite our actual omnivorous ways.
But I’ve got to say that the number of stories in which a carnivorous animal that is just filling its ecological niche is made into a evil (or somehow, even worse, greedy) villain of the story is starting to bug me.
Guess what? The Tawny Scrawny Lion would actually not be able to survive on carrot soup, no matter how delicious. T-Rex wouldn’t get by on water weeds. And for goodness sakes, let the poor frog in a bog eat as many ticks and flies and slugs as he wants. Are you crazy?
Bug-eating at least (though certainly the easiest form of carnivory for us to handle) gets a nice treatment in Janet Perlman’s upcoming The Delicious Bug (which is also a good sharing story), as well as in the classic Be Nice to Spiders. Otherwise, sympathetic portrayals of the full food chain come mostly from non-fiction.
Now, it’s not like I’m seeking gory nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw books for my toddler. I guess I’d just like the “natural order of the world is bad” theme to take a break.
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Tags: Axel-Lute, Be Nice to Spiders, books, bugs, carnivores, children's books, Delicious Bug, ecology, Frog in a Bog, Janet Perlman, picture books, science, Tawny Scrawny lion, Tyrannosaurus Drip
4 Comments
[...] Are Children’s Book Authors All Vegetarians? [...]
How Does $9.1 Billion in Savings Sound? | Strollerderby commented on Jul 31 09 at 1:00 pmDad commented on Jul 27 09 at 1:09 pmI think you’re stretching here…
diera commented on Jul 27 09 at 1:24 pmHere’s a nice pro-carnivore alphabet book:
http://www.amazon.com/Bold-Carnivore-Alphabet-Predators/dp/0976626497
Emma commented on Nov 05 09 at 1:56 pmI haven’t caught up on your postings here in months, but then I found this link that works to get me to the list. Anyway:
YES!!
Ugh, this drives me crazy too. It seems to be getting more pervasive as Z moves into older-kid books (as you’ve obviously been experiencing for a while now) and I would love it if we didn’t have to screen for it or re-write or explain, etc.
