Now the Past Laureate is censored
The controversy about language in CBCA’s Picture Book of the Year continues, with today’s Courier Mail just catching up and showing Requiem for a Beast being read to a nine year old for dramatic effect.
The whole problem seems to hinge around the ‘Children’ part of CBCA and the expectations that this word evokes, but for a newspaper to use a nine year old to demonstrate its out-of-context point, seems, well, just a tad irresponsible.
And just to prove how powerful books are, in Britain, former Children’s Laureate Jacqueline Wilson has had a word in her latest title, My Sister Jodie, removed after complaints from – wait for it – three parents.
This in a world where children and young adults are exposed to violence and foul language in the visual media seemingly without the blink of an eye.
The pen must be mightier than the YouTube.
