Nicolas, what are you thinking?

Last month, I took the kids to the library to pick out books. Normally, we pick out a stack of books, then sit in the corner and read them and decide which ones we want to take home. Sometimes we decide some of them are not as enjoyable as we first hoped, but usually, most of them make the cut. So anyway, at this particular visit, we had picked out our books and were packing up to head out. I was strapping Sophie in and rounding up Noah, so Travis did a little wandering, and he came up to me with a book called "Nicolas, where have you been?" So I flipped through it, the blurb on the cover indicates its a lesson about not judging a group based on one bad experience, a little mouse named Nicolas that is told not to like birds and then meets a group of super-nice birds and realizes that birds are good. Okay, sounds decent, into the stack it goes.

Then we get home and actually read the book. Its okay...Nicolas and his field mice friends all believe that birds are bad and then one day Nicolas gets picked up by a mean bird...who ends up dropping him in a nest with a family of birds that take him in and feed him and love him. Soon he realizes its time to go home, finds his field mice family and starts to relay the story. As soon as they hear he was abducted by a bird, the field mice literally declare "War on the birds!" and on the next page there appears a full-color spread of field mice wielding weapons and bludgeoning birds, one field mouse actually stabbing a bird to death with blood spurting everywhere. It was horrible. Now, at the end of the story, Nicolas finally explains to his family that the birds took care of him and were his friends, and they all calm down and come to the realization that you can't pass judgment like that, one bad bird does not make a flock, and all is well. Subsequent online research on this book has revealed that it is touted for teaching conflict resolution and offers a valuable lesson on compassion and understanding. And that its recommended for kids as young as 4.

Now, I'm not one to shy away from difficult conversations with my kids, and I do try to find ways to teach lessons out of unfortunate circumstances. Still, I have a hard time reconciling such a violent image in a kids book...I mean, we're not just taking anger here, we're talking death. That was a little much for me.

So, we kept the book, read it a few times, but always skipped over the evil page. And we did talk about how the mice learned that one bad bird did not mean that all birds were bad, and that they should try to be more understanding of those that are different from them and all that. And I don't think the page of death got burned into his memory or anything.

I guess the moral of this story is, never again will I leave the library without reading every book in its entirety. Yeesh.