Then I decided to share some of my favorite terrifying children's stories instead.
Don't worry, this'll be fun too!
As a YA Horror author, I often have to listen to people complain about how dark and violent teen literature is today. Okay, I guess everyone has to listen to the complaints that "children grow up so fast these days!" as if there were an abundance of times and places more conducive with a tolerable and leisurely process of growing up than the modern first world.
I'm a passionate believer in the value of horror, the freedom of art, and the competence of most young people to judge what kinds of stories they can handle, all subjects I've written on before and no doubt will again, but in the spirit of the month, I'm going to skip the rest of the heavy and get right to the fun, to a celebration of the monsters under all our beds, the ones we fought and beat before the first pangs of puberty but can still look back on with a satisfying chill.
It's not possible to tackle this topic without a nod to the horrifying European children's folktales as compiled by The Brothers Grimm, but these bite-sized terrors have already been well analyzed by more specialized scholars than myself, and I couldn't pick just one, so let's just kick off the new month with a highlights reel of my favorite horrible moments sitting in plain sight in the most popular Grimm’s stories!
Skipping the parts that seem to be disturbing without knowledge of the original tellers,
Rapunzel's prince getting pushed out of the tower and having his eyes gouged out on the thorn bushes below.
Yes, we all knew that one. Just soak it in.
Next week, we'll get to some meatier and more neglected children's terrors!
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