Children’s book terrifying, says angry mother

Press, 17 April 1982, Page 2

Children’s book terrifying, says angry mother

PA Nelson An angry Nelson woman has written to the Minister of Justice (Mr McLay) asking him to refer a children’s book called “Baleful Beasts and Eerie Creatures” to the Indecent Publications Tribunal. Mrs Rosemary Behan sent copies of the letter to the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon), the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Rowling), and the morals campaigner, Miss Patricia Bartlett. She said the book was given to her son, aged eight, as a birthday present. “It is terrifying. The sto-

ries are quite horrific and the . endings are either unhappy or leave no way out for the children. Whoever wrote these must have a sadistic streak,” Mrs Behan said. Blood pouring from the mouth of a glass rooster, children being possessed and killed by a toy monkey, and brothers being taken over by monsters were a few of the incidents in the stories. Illustrations showed such things as a young girl being dropped into a group of tentacled monsters. Mrs Behan said her children were not “soft” but there was a limit.