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Cartoon bunny attempts suicide, real-life children follow suit
Filed under: In The News
A 12-year-old from Shanghai tragically committed suicide this week -- but one bookstore isn't blaming bad parents, exam pressure, or playgrounds bullies. Instead they're pointing the finger at a children's literature.
"Bunny Suicides," a cartoon book meant to be "darkly humorous," depicts the trials and tribulations of a quadruped with a death wish -- a cute little bunny that tries to end his life using a guillotine, a jet engine, a toaster, and a myriad of other offbeat mechanisms for offing himself.
Sure it's gruesome, but is it really inciting suicide? The city has seen a rash of attempts by young people this past week, and while some local stores claim the book is clearly a joke (albeit a morbid one), Bookuu Book City yanked it from their shelves -- worried that it might give kids ideas they could try at home. Bookuu's owners have replaced the darkly comedic comic with self-help books aimed at teens with depression and other mental problems.
Seems like kids pushed to suicide by a hand-drawn rabbit might have deeper issues worth addressing, but that doesn't make the subject matter any easier to swallow. Is "Bunny Suicides" over the line?
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ReaderComments (Page 3 of 6)
9-13-2008 @ 12:07AM
Anthony said...People need to learn that it's not a "book" that is to blame. They are inanimate objects! Obviously the kid had some other issues and just ended it or whatever. You cannot be a "normal" person without figuring that the rabbit was trying to end himself so I figure that it would be a BAD idea!!!
Some people really need to take a step back and fight for a just cause, not wasting their time trying to get a book ban!
If you are disturbed by dark humour such as this that's cool, your choice. But for other people who need a quick laugh or what not and find this funny leave them be. Are those people monsters for enjoying something you don't? Is not each person entitled to their own opinion?
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9-12-2008 @ 10:29PM
Sunny said...I have a cartoon book called "Weiner Dog Art".
Is this going to incite cruelty to animals??
NOTHING is anybody's fault anymore.
There's always someone else to blame.
STOP all the inane poltical correctness.
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9-12-2008 @ 10:36PM
Alyssa said...This is a disgrace. i have just been going through a rough time with my friend after he has tried to commit suicide. While im in the fight against suicide, SUICIDE SEEMS TO BE WINNING!
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9-12-2008 @ 10:39PM
Brian said...My father committed suicide in 2002 when I was twelve, and I know how terrible it can be. This just insults me completely. Although I have not read the book, from what I have heard, it sounds bad.
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9-12-2008 @ 10:42PM
just me said...I do not in any way belive in banning any books, but I do feel that some books are not ment for young children or even young adults.
So Books have a rateing just like Movies and it should be a crime to give under age children books that they are not old enough for.
Some how we let crazy Teachers and Goverment officials raise our children and deside what is and is not good for them... It is clear from the problem this country has that it is not working. Parent need to take control and the ones that won't should be made to " Punish those with child abuse charges that are clearly not doing the job of protecting thir children to Adult subjects in Books, Movies, TV and Vidio games.
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9-12-2008 @ 10:44PM
Michele W said...It is plain to see that this book is for adults not children. People should be paying attention to what their kids are reading or what they are getting for their kids. It is called being a parent and checking things before you give it to your child.
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9-12-2008 @ 10:53PM
Anna said...What a bunch of politically correct sissies. Bad parenting I say; games, books & movies don't make you commit suicide.
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9-13-2008 @ 12:51AM
Donald Ross said...You may be right about most well adjusted people, but some are just waiting for a trigger and a book, or a movie, or some negative event can be it. I guess I don't understand someone feeling the need to write some piece of crap book like this.
9-12-2008 @ 10:57PM
Kevin said...If kids are that willing to commit suicide after reading a book, obviously there are problems that existed beforehand.
If suicide had never been appealing in the first place, the book would do nothing to affect children. Our lifestyle does not appeal to every child, believe it or not. If you want to stop children from commiting suicide, give them a world that doesn't make them feel terrible.
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9-13-2008 @ 12:54AM
Donald Ross said...Great a Stephen King for kids, just what we need a little more darkness in a world that is depressing enough.
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9-13-2008 @ 5:45PM
Stephen said...The question here isn't "Are books about suicide okay for children to read?" The question should be, "Was it found in the children's section of a bookstore? "Was this book made available to the child?"
Did the book perhaps belong to a caretaker of the child?
There is no doub that this is a tragedy, and I have sympathy for the child's family. But should these kind of books, which are meant to be read by adults, be banned because of a tragedy like this? You would have to ban virtually all comic books which portray cartoon-like violence, and even cartoons themselves would have to banned (how many times has Spongebob been run over by a car or shocked by a jellyfish?).
Simply put, banning this book would be wrong.
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9-13-2008 @ 1:10AM
Arlecchino said...How many times has Elmer Fudd shot Daffy Duck? How many times did Jerry trick Tom into taking lethal amounts of sleeping pills? If someone can blame a cartoon rather than bad parenting, they will.
9-12-2008 @ 10:57PM
ZeaT said...We have that book (or another one by that author) in my library. It's definitely not shelved in the childrens area. I agree with others who are saying that the child had huge problems that someone(s) were not addressing if a book gave them the idea to commit suicide. Of course we're never really going to know exactly what that child was thinking to do something so horrible.
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9-12-2008 @ 11:07PM
jimboChili said...This is retarded - everyone of us has to do without every time some darwin award winner pulls a boner like this one.
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10-18-2008 @ 8:31AM
me said...ok ANNEE NAME THE BOOK
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9-12-2008 @ 11:07PM
Lori said...Click on "pointing the finger at a children's literature" highlighted in blue in the above article for a more extensive article about this. The kid that committed sucide didn't use any of the outrageous and clearly not feasible sucide methods in the book. He jumped down stairs, others threated to jump, took pills, etc. Even a child wouldn't kill themselves because of a book such as this one.
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9-13-2008 @ 5:07AM
LadyCakeage said...Response to Lori:
He jumped down the stairs?? When he was 12?? That can kill you?!
When I was 7 whenever I did something I felt guilty about when my cousins and sister were all hanging out, I'd tell them I'd jump off the top of the stairs if they wanted. I'd run up to the top and ask them if they wanted me to do it. I didn't think that it would kill me, I just thought I'd get hurt or at the very worst break something. It freaked my (girl) cousin out everytime though. Hahhaha..! Well, they never let me do it, even though I almost did a couple of times. I guess I figured out that it could possibly kill me when I was around 10 or 11, and by that point I could think of other ways I could make it up to them if I ever did anything.
*reads article*
Ahh....he jumped off a sixth-floor apartment....Ok, I'm pretty sure he had issues to begin with, so the book couldn't (or shouldn't) have been the sole contributer leading up to his suicide. The book is kinda crazy....But so is Happy Tree Friends, and my friends and I thought it was hillarious. Maybe it's because Americans are more emotionally numb pertaining to violence after all that...television and etc.
"Such books might actually help readers to relieve stress, He said.
'The cartoon bunny's attempts to commit suicide are ridiculous. They're obviously meant to be funny," she said, adding, "The pressures those poor children face come from reality, not a comic book.' " -link up there
I'm guessing when people who are already kind of depressed and stressed out or maybe emotionally unstable see/read that sort of book they start getting ideas and getting desperate (both teens and adults. all age groups.). That's sad. Really, I can see how they can take it seriously and the dangers of it, but I can also see how black humor can be funny. I'm not helping here. Are we trying to think of solutions?
9-12-2008 @ 11:17PM
Kathryn said...I remember a poem about a little blue man.
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9-12-2008 @ 11:53PM
val said...What's your point? Have you tried to color yourself blue?
9-12-2008 @ 11:19PM
duh said...Do you really think it was a book that made a 12 yr old or any other kid kill themselves?I bet if you check that kids family life and any other kid who does this you will see the real reasons.Get real.If kids just did the things they read and saw on TV then I guess they would be doing all the good things they see on TV also .Funny they never do.
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