"Harry Potter", "Game of Thrones", "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hunger Games" are some of the famous fantasy books that a director of a private school in Gloucestershire, England classified as brain-damaging books for young children and they can cause mental illness in younger readers.
The principal, Graeme Whiting, recently posted a blog post on the school's website "The Acorn School's" arguing that parents should forbid their children to read "mythical and fearsome works" since he considers that these books contain "deeply insensitive and addictive material".
Graeme Whiting, who pursues, in her own words, "the values of traditional literature" wrote in her article, called "The imagination of the child" (in Spanish: "The imagination of children") that the purchase of commercial books for children it is like “feed your child lots of added sugar”. The principal called on the parents of the school to “protect” their children from the “dark, demonic literature, carefully peppered with the ideas of magic, control, and ghostly and fearsome stories”And expressed outrage at the lack of a "special license" which, according to him, it would be necessary to require to buy these books.
“I want children to read literature appropriate for their age and leave these mystical and fearsome texts for when they can discern reality and when they have learned to love beauty. Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Games of Thrones, The Hunger Games, and Terry Pratchett, to name just a few of the "must-haves" of the modern world, contain deeply insensitive and addictive material that I am sure encourages difficult behavior in children. However, they can buy these books without a special license and thus damage children's subconscious and sensitive brains small, many of which can be added to the current statistics of children with mental illness. "
“Children are innocent and pure at the same time and they do not need to be mistreated by introducing inappropriate things into their imaginations. «
Graeme Whiting mentioned some of her favorite authors such as Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, Dickens, and Shakespeare, yet she failed to acknowledge that these writers often drew on supernatural and violent themes in their respective novels, plays, and poetry.
In the last paragraph, Whiting concludes with the following message to parents about the choices of books their children read:
“It is the duty of parents to spend their time studying these questions and form their own conclusions, not to think that because the world is full of this literature, they have to give it to their children because it is what everything the world does. Beware of the devil in the books! Choose beauty for children!"
After these statements by a director, we can only stop to think about if this literature really hurts the little ones. Do you consider it that way? I honestly do not think that Game of Thrones is an ideal reading for a young child, but I do not know what harm Harry Potter can do, a saga that has been the approach to literature of many young people. Just as Terry Pratchett has written some children's books and grown-ups are not harmful, it is just a more difficult read for a child. On the other hand, speaking of «choose beauty for kids«Is it necessary to keep them in a cloud of cotton and not allow them, depending on their age, to get into other types of books? Do you consider fantasy literature harmful to younger brains?
I leave you the links in case you want to go to the school page or read the full article written by the director and which is in English.
- The Arcon School private school page
- Article "The imagination of the child" written by director Graeme Whiting
When I was a child, I read Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, etc. … And I don't have any mental illness. And it cannot be said that these are good books, or that they contain some beauty …….
It is very complex to give an opinion and choose for or against the reading of those great literary works of fantasy. Although it seems that from what I have said I am in favor, I disagree on several points. Above all, what children read must be filtered, according to their age, personality, mood ... and it is also true that the consumer industry is abysmal and they do not care about our physical, psychological, moral, emotional ... and even material integrity. Everything is very distorted by many types of interests and through literature it is also done. We can read and read, but over time we must discern what is beneficial to us and protect minors. The Truth of everything that surrounds us is much more complex than what we see, and we must inform ourselves so as not to be manipulated as mariomets by political, religious and other tendencies, although I consider myself a great mystic in search of the Truth. I conclude by encouraging Internet users to continue reading, investigating and not letting themselves be carried away by the belief of a few, if not that they are the ones who form their Divine World with respect for others, nature and all this Cosmos that we wraps up. We are Divine Consciousness with the Whole. God is out there and in you, Brother!
What a bit of a moron, this Whiting!
I rather think that children are abandoned by mothers and fathers who work, allowing them many things that are not very good to say, such as watching television for many hours, playing violent video games, using the internet without supervising what they are watching, buying them a "smart" cell phone, or rather buy them everything they want without making them earn it, because they have the remorse of not being with them and when they are ... they are but tired, they do not listen to them, they only consent to them and they grow up with a distorted reality that they deserve everything without fighting for anything, it costs them nothing, they do not know how to wait, they do not know what frustration is, children become tyrants and are experts in manipulating parents, we are in a society that tells us that To think and what to do, I'm sorry, but that feminism is a reality that most women have been put to work to make this system richer, where we only make the rich richer.They do not realize how before one person's salary was enough for the other to stay calmly taking care of the family at home, the family that is the fundamental unit of society, they are destroying us, they do not realize how everything is, like The violence is growing, because people feel that something is not right and that way they take it out, but they must focus on who you should deserve our anger, to those governments, to that monarchy that are the owners of this system, and that we They are destroying because unfortunately we are their slaves in this prison that many cannot see, but they can feel it.
Do not pay attention or even value what they say insane. Not a single line should be dedicated to this guy. He is just a local madman who instead of being a drunk with a beard who goes from bar to bar, is a director of a private school. A religious fanatic whose opinion has the same value as a piece of garbage.