...I can see how it'd be useful for kids who've been abused, but...damn, man. Just, wow. Ironically, I actually enjoyed it as a read, and can't imagine a kid 'getting' it. I believe this happens with a lot of apparent kid's books - call it Little Prince syndrome. Are you sure this wasn't made for the sake of humour for an adult audience? Cos no right-minded parent is gonna get that for their kid...
The book works at several levels. First, you may not like to acknowledge it, but children do get sexually abused --usually the vulnerable ones, from dysfunctional families with parents too preoccupied with their own problems, or the neglected ones starved for attention. The story in the book is an all too familiar one. In that respect it is aimed at children --albeit at a specific target group. Of course you wouldn't give this to any kid. And of course it is not the parents that would do the giving. This is a therapeutic book and would only be given by a child therapist in very specific and controlled conditions. The book would be read together, or the child would be able to talk about it and ask questions of the therapist afterwards. As for the adults: many abused children grow up to be disturbed adults. You can imagine that this is not conducive to cognitive or educational development and many young adults with a history of abuse/neglect end up being illiterate, immature and having learning difficulties. This book may be pitched at children, but for some young adults it is about as sophisticated as their reading gets. The only thing disturbing about this book is that it needed to be written.
hmmm. i can see why it should be written and also why it shouldn't be given to children as well... just goes to show how bad things are these days..
Well yes, since, in the story's case, the kid only knew love/caring from his pedophile uncle, he knows no better and wants that closeness/attention/caring which he only knows comes from others then his parents, and only from other males. Thus he is conditioned in a way to look for comfort in other males outside of his home since he knows he cannot talk to his parents about problems in his life. By today's definitions he is "homosexual" though in reality he just tries to find comfort where he was used to look for it, in other guys.
Alright, that's it. I insist they instigate [sarcasm] tags in this forum. I'm just losing the plot completely.
It looks like the sort of book that prospective adoptive/foster parents would be given, tbh (among other things).
