My parents read Roald Dahl to me and would put on Watership Down years before I was 7, without ever tainting the world for me. The same was true for several generations of British kids. A happy ending after a disturbing struggle is more like a way of instilling durable optimism in children.
Funnily enough, my parents read Watership Down to me too, I would have been around 4-5 then. They skipped the worst bits, and yet still I remember being scared. I liked the rest of the story, including the happy end.
You can sanitize without hurting, and even if you think you remove the worst bits, it can still be too much, for some children at least.
strongly agree. I've been loving anything/everything produced by the animation studio "Studio Ghibli".
I was introduced via the first few works created by the first director, Hayao Miyazaki, it's absolutely ruined me for nearly all other works that claim to be for children.
Their productions feel so dignifying to everyone, embracing the full human experience, not so necessarily dark and disturbing.
I think i once heard Neil Gaiman explain that he doesn’t think that the level of violence is what distinguishes a book for adults from a book for kids but whether or not the protagonist looses control in the novel and to which extent.
My 4 year old and I just finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He sometimes got a little nervous when the other kids disappeared, but he loved the story. Charlies virtue was so obvious to him. We just brought home a stack of more Roald Dahl from the library.
