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by Sean McCormack.
Original Post: Violent Nursery Rhymes
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I want to teach my daughter Arabic so I recently ordered a copy of Tales from
Kalila wa Dimna which is the Middle Eastern equivalent to the Brothers
Grimm Fairy Tales. I thought it would be fun for us to read together.
I was shocked when I read the first story...it's about an elephant that purposely
steps on a lark's egg and kills the chick inside. When questioned why he did
it, he said because he was bigger than the lark and powerful - and he did it because
he could. The lark gets mad and rounds up a bunch of other animals. An
eagle pecks the elephants eyes out, some other animals lure him into a ditch and trap
him, etc. Moral of the story is that the weaker can defeat the stronger...but
it's delivered in a pretty violent narrative.
It got me to thinking about Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales in general. Rock-a-Bye
Baby is about a baby falling out of a tree. Hansel and Gretel is about a witch
that wants to eat the kids. Red Riding Hood is about a wolf that ate Grandma
and is still hungry. It's Raining It's Pouring is about an old man who cracks
his head on his head board and dies. And the list goes on...
Why are all these stories so violent? We protect our kids from violent movies
and video games, but then tell them these stories right before they go to bed??
Or sing this songs for fun? And, after getting the Arabic book, it's obvious
it's not just Western culture...it's spread across all cultures. I'm sure almost
every culture out there has tales of the Boogey Man. I read The
Bridge on the Drina (really good by the way) and Serbian children's stories focused
on scary Arabs that hid under the bridge and would steal children. Interesting.
I think my daughter and I will stick with Dr. Suess and Dora...