to have confiscated my six year old's horrible history book

[Tholeonagain]

DS, who has just turned six, was given a copy of the Horrible History 'England' book. Lovely, I thought. History is fascinating & I'm keen to encourage his interest in it. I flicked it open to have a quick glance through, expecting to come across a bit of toilet humour. The first paragraph I read, entitled 'deadly dads' was about parents, in AD 6 something or other, eating their own children during a famine. Actually found that pretty traumatic reading myself.. not something I want to put in the hands of my (probably averagely sensitive) six year old! Am I being ott?? Missing something?? What ages are these books aimed at?

I myself was traumatised by medieval crime and punishment - quite why we teach kids this shit as a topic is beyond me. There is so so much more to history than the death penalty and other such morbid topics

Recently I found (and did not borrow !) some similar books

You are not being unreasonable and I wish we could think of a new slant to make history interesting other than the 'horrible brand '

I'm just feeling rather jealous your child can read so well! If only my six year old could.....

I used to love Horrible Histories books! I think as adults we read more into things - as kids it's just "Hahaha, they ate their children, gross!", they don't really imagine it in as much detail as we would and make quite such a horrific mental connection to it. I mean for me - as a parent - the idea is really horrifying. But as a child, it's much more abstract. I mean, giants in fairy tales eat people all the time, and we think nothing of that. It's our own emotional maturity which makes the idea of eating one's own children more awful.

I agree with BertieBotts. A 6 year old won't bring any of the emotional horror to the idea of parents eating their kids that you do.

Ds read them all at 7 and 8 yrs, and he was, is, a mature reader, and took it all in his stride.

Six is too little, I think. Concepts of 'famine' and 'cannibalism' and in other parts of the books, torture and execution, are a bit much for this age group.

They should all be confiscated because Terry Deary is a massive cunt. I have had the misfortune to spend time with the man.

There are other really good books out there which are funny and engaging but not relentlessly gruesome. Ds enjoye the books by Phillip ardargh (although may have name wrong!).

We enjoy the shows but the best thing about hh is that it has encouraged ds to read around a subject. He has found a few errors in the books himself.

We got some very good and engaging library books out about cleopatra , medieval history , the crusades and Charles Darwin

They all managed to not focus on death , torture and other such topics

It's depresses me that the only way to make it interesting is horrible

And yes horrible stuff happened and I am not suggesting we whitewash history / but not dwell on it either

@ bunchofbastards

I take it he's no more pleasant in real life than he comes across in interviews/press then?

I have never forgiven him for the comments about libraries. DD has a set of HH books that predates that, but I have refused to buy or even borrow anything of his ever since.

There are now, Fromparis, but when these books were first published in the 90s the offerings were mostly dull.

Perhaps you're right that there is less need for them nowadays. In which case, they've done a good thing, I think.

What's wrong with Terry Deary? Am interested that 2 have commented on this thread!

Ds3 loves horrible histories. It's made him obsessive about history & means he'll read much drier stuff now because it's his thing. He's quite a sensitive soul (terrified of weeping Angels) but no worries re HH

5yo DS reads HH and also the Deadly 60 books, he talks about them non-stop and recites facts from them. Feeling like a bad parent now that quite a few people are saying they wouldn't let their child read HH

I'd have thought that it depends on the child and their personality. DS is quite matter-of-fact and is not easily upset by things like that, yet DD would be an emotional wreck so when the time vomes I probably won't let her read them at this age.

Oh goodness, I hope you don't have any other books with such vile things mentioned in them. Roald Dahl books are a prime example. I loved HH books ever since I could read, maybe I'm morbid though.

DS and DD read them from age 7 (and both can be quite sensitive / anxious about things). But might be worth you looking at Tony Robinson's Weird World of Wonders series which both mine also loved as similar level of reading but generally less gruesome about the nature of the horrible things whilst still including the facts (eg Jews being killed in WW2, death of Caesar, etc).

But I credit HH books with the fact that both DCs now love history and actually know a lot more about history than I do, so have encouraged them to read them. Also useful for children who aren't interested in fiction books but will happily read these.

www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/13/libraries-horrible-histories-terry-deary

Here's a taste of his views. Prick.

I don't find that point of view prickish at all. I disagree with him, I think libraries are great, but he does make some good points. Isn't it like artists complaining about music piracy or services like Spotify? It is a living for them - he's quite open about that. I don't think that authors have to gush about loving books and loving writing to make them good authors. It's fine for them to consider it just a job.

YANBU

Wow what a prick indeed ! Shocked

We'll fuck face I shan't be borrowing your books

Bertie me , and DS are wuss. Or sensitive - but seriously we have had to discard a few books as too upsetting !

I was actually really pleased to read a whole entire book of medieval history that did not even have a chapter on the gory stuff -

I don't think complaining about libraries when you're making the amount he's making in public lending rights is on personally, never mind all the other associated spin offs & merchandise.

It's all very well to say people have a choice to make & will buy a ticket to see 'Matilda' but expect to borrow the book, but there are millions of people who don't fall into the category of having any spare cash for such luxuries.

He thinks people don't have a 'right' to read books as poor authors need to make a living, but authors don't have a 'right' to multi-thousand pound book deals either. It takes time & hard work or an extraordinary amount of luck - no need to penalise the less well off members of our society because not all authors get lucky.

Sorry I think YAB a bit precious. This doesn't sound any more gruesome than the average fairy tale. Surely in Hansel and Grettel the witch was planning to eat the children? And wicked step-parents abound - e.g. Snow White. I doubt most 6 year olds would be disturbed by this.

YANBU OP, it sounds pretty horrific. I always thought the Horrible Histories were pretty harmless but I got a couple for DD and was a bit taken aback by the gruesomeness. Luckily (!) she is not a good enough reader to tackle them yet.

I agree with Fromparistoberlin73 too that it's a shame history has to be death&destructed up for kids when really it is interesting enough on its own merits.

Having said that, my favourite history topic at school (secondary mind you) was the history of medicine and I still remember the story of the 19th century surgeon who worked so quickly he actually sliced off a poor guy's member along with his infected leg (!!) so it obviously made an impression.

And while DD can take it or leave it, DS (age 3) is begging me to watch Nightmare Before Christmas, and told me off earlier for hiding the Quentin Blake illustratation to the Roald Dahl Cinderella Revolting Rhyme earlier - the one with the ugly sister getting her head chopped off.

I think as PP have said it depends on your child. I'm reading The Witches with DS who is just five, and while I've skipped the stuff about the parents being killed I was worried I'd misjudged all this stuff about children being killed (I'd forgotten quite how gruesome it is). He loves it, while I am faintly traumatised. Lots of kids simply don't empathise at that age.

Your child isn't a parent, so won't attach the gut-aching sadness to that information the same way you will, as a parent.

YANBU
I think some of them are vile. The Romans one particularly so. When young readrers are told gruesome facts about real named people in a jokey 'Let's all laugh at this' fashion, that's sick as fuck. Where do we draw the line? It's ok if they've been dead 10 years? 50 years? 100? 1000?
Or maybe it's more that I didn't want my little kids knowing these specific things happened to these specific people at all. And the older ones have grown into thoughtful, socially aware and sensible adults despite the deprivation.