Scary books for children: harmless terror?
"I think children like the horror books because they are like a ride on the roller coaster. They are very quick to read and very exciting. When you think you're going on the one hand they take you to another direction. It makes you dizzy and drives you crazy. "This is the opinion of Robert L. Stine, one of the most prolific and well-known authors of this literary formula that stays in top form and literally excites boys and girls. Is it a harmless terror?
The horror novels and scary books for children They sell many millions of copies a year and are usually on the best-selling lists. These are books designed exclusively for young and carefree readers in which the protagonists reproduce their daily habits and their daily conflicts and, at the same time, fantasize about strange events.
The amazing marketing of scary books for children
One of the factors of the great success of these horror books is an effective advertising and commercial release, which is supported by references to well-known films and television series. All this ensures the presence of these books in the most important mass selling points: large surfaces, kiosks, etc.
The publicity of the collections and the external design count a lot: striking covers with comic aesthetics that sometimes show bloody knives or adolescents in danger; phosphorescent covers that shine in the dark; headlines and headings of blood dripping chapters; Challenging slogans like "You can not sleep!", "Do not read it at night!", "It will make your hair stand on end!" ...
What is the success of scary books for children
However, the success of these horror books it is not only due to the success in design or advertising. Children have always been told stories ... that sometimes are terrifying: Little Red Riding Hood is devoured by the wolf, Snow White is poisoned by the stepmother, Thumbling quartered the ogre ... Since childhood, childhood fears have been channeled into the fiction, and educators have seen that resource with good eyes. You can "play to be afraid", a game that has its meaning in the construction of defense mechanisms. As they overcome their fears (to the darkness, to be separated from the parents), the child experiences a pleasant sensation, like the vertigo of the slide: it is attractive and even fun to see the danger without suffering it, or with the certainty that it is not going to spend nothing.
Another thing is, however, the recourse to what has been called a pedagogy of terror: populate the children's minds with monsters, threaten men with sacks ... that make them timorous people. Worse still, in any case, it is the effect that can produce scenes of tension or cruelty unintelligible to them, when they are not yet able to separate the fictitious from the real, or when they have no criteria to discern reasons that ignore.
Naive tales of fear for children
It should be clarified that a majority of these stories are innocuous and even naive, with technological monsters that are as scary as or more than a well-plump ogre or an evil witch. And the seemingly cruelest characters have already been swallowed up by a pop aesthetic that makes them trivial. The enemies are kidnappers of children, teachers who have secrets, rare neighbors ... and the well-known mad scientists, undead, werewolves, perverse aliens, etc.
Stine has often been asked about the type of material he would never use in his books. "I believe that these books are basically entertainment, and I am already in charge of not mixing anything real in them.The real world is much more terrifying than these books, so I never talk about things like divorce, drugs or abuse. I do not use any of the serious things in reality that could interfere with reading entertainment. "
Mystery, terror, suspense, science fiction ... everything in a book?
This type of book is criticized for its escapist and trivial character, because they offer nothing more of fear than experiencing the pleasure or the artificial emotion of suffering something terrible and harmless at the same time, something like the curiosity of contemplating a dead monster. The most important thing, according to Stine, is that the books "always leave you safe and sound at the end of the story and you know that, however scary and terrifying it may seem, you're always safe all the time."
The best fantasy stories of terror always have a deeper meaning; Every good book carries a load of information, feelings, attitudes ... It is true that they have the merit of engaging and passionate adolescents for reading, in a world with numerous and attractive alternatives (video game consoles, computers, television). But it is a non-definitive remedy, because these books can reach the taste and lead to more rugged stories, instead of orienting them towards the real literature.
Books and scary readings for children
- One of the reasons for the taste for this type of books It can also be the attempt to evade one's growth fears: friends, school, brothers, death of someone ... We must be vigilant to see that it is not a symptom of a deeper wound.
- If we prefer that our children do not read this kind of stories we must bear in mind that when we oppose ourselves frontally, we make them more public. They are books that are aimed at children, with a close language, and therefore, in contrast to adults. If above it becomes something forbidden, its appeal rises like foam.
- By offering them other books as an alternative think that you should also look for books and modern works, striking, so they do not identify good literature with the smell of dust, yellow leaves and miserable covers.
- As always, before buying or letting you read a book It is very interesting to read it or browse it generously or read your review in a trusted publication to check its content.
- Certain movies or television scenes (in programs like the news, for example) can cause stronger and longer lasting impressions than the innocent threat of a band of mutant zombies.
- The best way to attract children to good books It consists of having a good library at home, with sufficiently attractive titles. There are guides, pages of specialized magazines that offer titles of interest for children.
Ricardo Regidor
