What troubles a precocious boy

[rhu]

I've been reading "One for the Morning Glory" with Tani at bedtimes. We got to the scene where the refugees are fleeing Waldo's armies and arriving at the city, and it mentions almost in passing that some of the soldiers standing guard are traumatized by two things: a family of refugees who are spooked by something behind them, rush through the checkpoint, and are cut down by the soldiers; and another family whose baby had been turned undead and burst into flames when the soldiers touched it with rosewood and garlic.

And Tani has freaked out. He's afraid to go to sleep by himself and wants a nightlight; he is talking a mile a minute because, he tells me, if he stops talking his brain returns to that idea, even though we've moved past that in the book.

This may be the turning point where he finally internalizes the idea that war isn't cool, that there's a horrific human toll to it.

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Wow. It's been a while since I read that book, but I probably skimmed right through that thinking nothing of it. Of course, I was a lot older and knew it was fiction.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with the book, but that does sounds pretty horrific. I can understand his being freaked out.

[introverte.livejournal.com]

It's actually a wonderful book, don't let this ruin it for you.

[(Anonymous)]

Gilli has the same issue, although the story just needs to be intense or sad, not necessarily horrific, for her to be affected. I was reading "The Little Princess" to her at bedtime about 6 months or so ago and she didn't want to hear the story anymore when we got to the sad part. If she has heard or seen an intense story, she has a hard time going to sleep and usually falls asleep with her head under the covers.

Julie

[introverte.livejournal.com]

Tani can't handle anything even vaguely intense in movies & tv, but he's been fine with anything in books for a long time now.

[rubrick.livejournal.com]

Yep, that was me. And still is to some extent. When I was a kid, watching a preview for a horror movie — or even just hearing a vague synopsis of one — was enough to render me sleepless for days or weeks. I kept a stash of "comfort books" near my bed that I could read to try to distract myself until I was exhausted enough to fall asleep without thinking. It was bad.

I'm curious: was it the family being cut down or the combusting undead baby that freaked out Tani? For me it would have been entirely the latter. Violence, and even gore, didn't (and doesn't) especially push my buttons; there has to be a hard-to-define psychological element of "horror" present.

Unfortunately the only real "lesson" I learned was that fiction had to be approached very, very cautiously, because it might contain things that would leave me in such a state. I postponed reading The Phantom Tollboth for a long time because of that word "Phantom" in the title. (I later made up for this miscalculation by reading it dozens of times.)

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

It was both. Violent conflict between opposing armies doesn't bother him, or between single combatants. And the Death Star bloodlessly detonating Alderaan is abstract.

But a family on the brink of safety being killed by their own troops because they got startled by a noise behind them? A family thinking that they'd taken good care of their defenseless infant only to have that baby explode? Those are specific enough to be envisioned, and challenging to a child's fundamental sense that "my parents can protect me."

I never read the Phantom Tollbooth until about two months ago. My loss. Tani ate it up.

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

G paused and grimaced and watched my (tearing) face for guidance, but let it pass. Reading the Illiad with him last year, and pointing out how Homer thinks about the violence he's writing about (and the attitude of the other gods toward Ares), got the "war is hell" point across to him. I haven't heard much about his playing wargames since then.