Hi everyone, I've specifically joined this site in order to find out how to complain about these books! I expect most of us will have seen 'horrid henry' on tv, and my grandson likes the cartoon. They seemed acceptable, so I bought 2 Horrid Henry books - A giant slice of Horrid Henry, and A helping of Horrid Henry.
I was reading through them and realised they are just terrible books - advocating and encouraging all the behaviours that no-one - just no-one - would subscribe to!
I had thought that they would be rather like the 'william' books, where the boy is often misunderstood for wanting to do 'good' actions - and actually does things that we would all accept. Not the horrid henry books. Where to start? One of the main subjects is the fact that he loves junk food. That would, I suppose, be alright as a reflection of children's preference, but the book, as it were, endorses this, and encourages it. Just one chapter - horrid henry eats a vegetable.
Henry 'lies' - it actually says this -without any mention or indication that this is bad - his brother, peter, who likes 'healthy' food - is made to look silly - and his parents are made to be unpleasant characters themselves - they make a deal with henry that if he eats healthily they will take him to his favourite takeaway - knowing (it transpires at the end) -that it has been closed and replaced by a ?'dreadful' veggie cafe.
I'm not a vegetarian - and if there was anything pleasant or funny in this chapter it wouldn't be so bad - but it is just filled with Henry unpleasantly tricking and lying to his parents (pretending to eat his food by hiding it/throwing it on the floor etc) - not being found out - but being unkindly tricked by them in the end. If he had indeed eaten all his vegetables in order to be taken to 'Gobble and Go' - how cruel were his parents - knowing that it no longer existed??
Every chapter, as far as i can see, is similar in encouraging bad, anti-social, unkind behaviour. But I have no more time! - could anyone tell me how and who I can complain to about these books as they most certainly should not be on the shelves for young children to read.