The Happy Ending Foundation Invites You To A Book Burning
ONCE upon a time, in a garden not far enough away, The Happy Ending Foundation met.
Hello, Mrs Small. Are you going to burn the books in a huge fire?
(Nods)
Good. Little Miss Small, Mrs Small’s daughter is ten. She is depressed. Do you know what depressed means?
(Hold up hands)
No, that’s rehab. And no, that’s a sexually transmitted disease. An STD.
Depressed is what Miss Small gets after reading stories with sad endings.
Says Mrs Small: “I talked to other mothers and friends and we decided to do something positive with books that are more upbeat.”
Clare Hughs, Mrs East of England Cheering Committee, says: “I’ve seen the way my children respond to real life, whether it be the disappearance of a child, like Madeleine McCann (now to be called Little Miss Missing) or bombings, and that give them enough nightmares.”
So Mrs Small and Mrs Cheering are planning a series of Bad Book Bonfires later this month, says the Mail reports.
The fires will coincide with Children’s Book Week.
So if you have a bad book in out home, library or school bag, bring it along and see if it burns.
Fire is bright and fire is clean…
Posted: 5th, October 2007 | In: Tabloids Comments (34) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
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October 1st, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I think you would be intrested to know that Lemony Snicket is all about Jewish people, so no worries here…
October 10th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
For God’s sake people, visit the site or read the comments above - THIS IS A MARKETING SCAM promoting the next Lemony Snickett novel!
Did the silly disclaimer or the ‘activist hamsters’ not give it away?
I think it’s sad that so many people are so easy to wind up.
October 8th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Well, If it’s not a joke then I have to fall back on the general thrust of this string. To deny lifes facts and truths by destroying literature is a reflection on the people who propose such a thing. They are obviously into denial themselves and cannot cope with having to nurture their children through the bad times as well as the good.
It must be such a wonderful world these people inhabit. Everything is sugar sweet and pleasant - just like in Disneyland. Everything is planned and will always turn out nice. Well - I would not like to be around when their children have the first real dissapointment of their lives. They wil feel let down, lied to and ultimately that will become the defining factor in the future parent/child relationship those people will have to endure.
I am a parent - with two girls. They grew up in a police household attached to a police station and I can assure you they witnessed some hard facts of life during that time. We were able to talk these things through and deal with them in a rational way. The end result? Two mature grown up professionals with a strong bond to both parents and who make me proud every day.
Did I damage them by allowing them to become aware that life is not full of happy endings? No I didn’t. Our children can cope with a lot more than we adults give them credit for and the more we support them in gaining a balanced view of life the stronger they become.
These people need sympathy and parenting classes more than approbation.
October 8th, 2007 at 2:26 am
Ask yourself a question, are you doing this for your children or yourself?
Sure, I was disappointed when I discovered santa was not real, but it was just one of the experiences that taught me to deal with other disappointments in life.
Effectively your looking to censor things that most children read, I do not believe your own children will thank you for not making them aware that bad things do happen in life.
October 7th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
No joke…
October 7th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
I am almost speechless.
1st - My father died when I was 10. What was I to think??? Children don’t need this kind of stupid misleading protection from adults who simply can’t cope with their own mortality. Wake up and smell the coffee people! We are all destined to die and it is unforgivaeble to try and protect our children from that nasty fact.
I was a police officer for 30 years and had on a number of occassions the job of comforting children who I had just broken the news to that Daddy or Mummy (or both) is not coming home. Try it yourself someday and see how you feel. My heart broke on each and every occassion I had to do that. Was I going to compound their misery by lying to them about these hard facts of life and trying to somehow make it better! Off course I wasn’t. I can make it easier for them and try and help them come to terms with this thing which is going to stay with them for the rest of their lives but I was never going to lie.
Please, please oh please let this be a joke.
October 7th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Isn’t book-burning the first step on the road to fascism??
October 7th, 2007 at 7:37 am
I hear Guy Fawkes was a Jew
October 7th, 2007 at 6:54 am
Put the McCann’s (story) on it
October 6th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Anorak rounding up Jews is so 1939. Start with a pogrom at least. Personally I’m looking foward to Guy Fawkes nacht. Might start with a few volumes of Shakespeare (the one about Shylock has to go and bring it home with the entire range of Encyclopaedia Brittanica.
October 6th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
what a stupid idear!! (no offence) Is this lady of her roker! books are wonderfull things! why would u burn them? Ich mag Buch!
October 6th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Mrs Smith - I thought we ronded up the Jews first? Remind me of the plan again…
October 6th, 2007 at 8:38 am
I always enjoy a good book burning after dinner its good for the economy and always results in greater book sales for the books that have been burned because of the new found interest in them. I personally would like to donate a book I have written so that I can sell more copies. If anyone is interested it is titled ” The Downfall of the Modern Empires and the Resulting Utopian Rebuilding and Urban Tribal War Preparation: The Formation Starvation Gangs Plus BBQ recipes and Ammo Preparation For Dummies”
October 5th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
This is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. What’s next - rounding up all the Jews?
October 5th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
I myself am a teenager, and have read many books with “unhappy” endings. In the article on page 25 of friday 5th October’s Daily Mail, the “A Series of Unfortunate Events” series is said to be upsetting. If you read the whole series, (thirteen books in all), there is always an underlying presence of good triumphing over evil. At the end of every single books, the Baudilaire orphans are alive, furthermore, the orphans ultimately escape from the evil and Count Olaf, and are safe.
I do not see how this is depressing, and there are warning on the blurb of every book, reccomending the reader to “look for something more cheerful, if yopu prefer that sort of thing”.
You cannont blame a book for a child or teenager’s outlook on life.
October 5th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
This was a clever marketing ploy by the company who represents the Lemony Snicket books:
http://www.inkygirl.com/happy-endings-foundation-a-book-marketing-ploy/
(I was also taken in!)
October 5th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Anorak , the magic money button asap please
October 5th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
what is going on. first you are saying you want to protect children and keep their innocence and then today (friday) claire hughes tells the nation on the jeremy vine show that father christmas is not real. surely that could have done more harm to many children today. well done claire!
October 5th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
What is the definition of a happy ending ???
October 5th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
I heard the radio report too (or another one - with Michael Morpurgo), but having looked at the website I can’t believe this is a real campaign. Maybe they are enjoying the fact that people are taking them seriously and carrying it one step further…
October 5th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
It is no joke - I’ve been on Radio 2; it’s deadly serious
October 5th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Dani
She has just been on radio 2 news, its no joke!.
October 5th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Oh, how I wish i’d never read Little Red Riding Hood and that big bad wolf stuff when I was a child - it might have spared me from the death of various loved ones, 9/11, and all the other mean things in life - How nice that the book burners will spare other children such trauma by chopping the sharp corrners off the World so we all get by without sadness - the puritans of the 17th /18th centuries tried to change King Lear for a happy ending, but those evil liberals brought back the tragedy - I guess the campaign will fail again - after all Harry Potter where they drink butterbeer but Voldermort doesn’t turn up at all, isn’t much good - and most kids have already read the full uncut unburnt copies of that - let’s not stop with books either - let’s burn people who might say bad things to kids - books need writers - lets target them too — note, this is satire - I think the foundation is a joke of little real political or social clout.
October 5th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
7 pippa
glad you mentioned that book.
it scared the hell out of me at school and made me view the whole war thing in a totally different way.
suddenly, the world was a dangerous place!
more books like this is a good thing.
October 5th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
I think you’ll find this is a joke. See the disclaimer at the bottom of their website:
Disclaimer: Most characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living, dead, or half dead, is purely coincidental. None of the non-fictitious people, places or things named in this website were harmed during the creation of the site. We’re not sure if the Loch Ness monster is fictitious or non-fictitious, you decide. We would like to state that some of the books recommended on this site are very good reads, particularly Winnie-the-Pooh. However, we would NOT recommend monster hunting at Loch Ness as a happy day out because a) it rains a lot in north Scotland and b) as previously stated, we don’t know if there is actually a monster to hunt. However, if you like logs then Loch Ness is a fine place to go log hunting.
October 5th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
What a load of rubbish. How old would a child need to be before being introduced to grief - 5 years old, 10 ….. 15 ……?
If children are allowed to grow up experiancing grief when bad things happen, it has to be more gentle on them than suddenly being told at the age of (for the sake of argument) 15, that people and pets do actually die and bad things do actually happen and there is not always a happy ending. Or are you happy to lie to them about where their pet has gone, or where mummy or daddy is.
Their understanding of grief develops and matures as they themselves do.
So allow your children to develop normally and dont lie to them.
October 5th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Of all the absurd things i read this takes the biscuit.re we in nazi Germany book burning times again, or North Korea.How are the wee darlings to cope with real life if insulated from anything and everything that is not all rosy. This woman needs to be gagged……….. fast. If she does not want her own kids to read nasty endings that is her choice, but how dare she want to inflict this on everyone else ?
October 5th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
As a parent of 20 years and teacher of 35 years experience I have some sympathy with the opinions put forward on both sides of this argument - apart from the gender insult put forward by ‘Laurence’ who needs to grow up.
I would, however, recommend that a book entitled ‘Children of The Dust’ be avoided.
It made my teenage child very depressed.
October 5th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Is this woman a Christian?, if she is I certainly hope shes not reading the bibles to her children with all the horrors it contains.
October 5th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Wonderful idea, not! lets wrap up everyone and insulate them from all the sad things in the world, Granny will die, so will Mummy and Daddy and Colin the rabbit etc etc
How would children cope if they expect everything is all sunshine and light for ever and ever until the next day!!
October 5th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
What a ludicrous idea! I note that this website is called ‘anorak.co.uk’. I have noted that all spokespeople are women; does that say something?
Children above all are not stupid. Writing should reflect the world that is there.
Very young children do not deserve to have books with bad or sad endings. But what happens if a sad event happens in the family where someone has an accident or dies? Books can help.
As for book burning; well, no doubt someone somewhere will claim you are just adding to the CO2 we have in the climate.
—
Mods and Admin
Anorak just reports quirky news items that he finds, the women involved in the book burning do not represent Anorak, they are nothing to do with us