Gordaen's Blog

I visited the local library a week or so ago and I was surprised at some of the books I saw. For instance, in the children’s section there was a book about rape. I would hope that’s a topic that a young child doesn’t need to know about and, when s/he is older, the parent tells the child (rather than the child finding out in a book). Another book I saw was “Everybody Poops” by Taro Gomi and Amanda Mayer Stinchecum.

Apparently this book has been around for quite a while and is somewhat well-known. I know that children’s books are generally about simple topics, but this one… well, I was surprised that adults could create an illustrated book showing various people and animals pooping. The book is not educational (unless you call a book that tells you an elephant’s poop is big “educational”) and the pictures are, um, weird. If you’re one of those people who laughs every time you hear a fart and you have an early-grade-school reading ability, this book might be for you. The message is pretty much that “shit happens” in the non-metaphorical sense, so you shouldn’t be afraid to tell a doctor “My poop was big like an elephant’s!” Of course, if your child is old enough to read and doesn’t know that people and animals poop, you might want to consider a picture book explaining how to be a good parent.

The poop book didn’t offend me. I simply thought it was weird. Then I saw a book about the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. “Hiroshima No Pika” is another children’s book with large illustrations and a small bit of text on each page. Just like anyone who has had five minutes of history lessons, I think what happened at Hiroshima was terrible, but that’s the extent of similarity I have with Toshi Maruki, the author of this book. You see, I believe in this crazy thing called context, of which this book has none.

I skimmed the pages of this story and it was basically like this (parts in parenthesis are implied): Everyone in Hiroshima was having a wonderful day. It was all sunny (and the Japanese were the best people in the world). Everyone was happy. The Japanese had torn down all old buildings and taken precautions (every single one possible) to prevent significant damage from a bombing by the (evil, evil, evil) Americans. Then there was a bright flash and every single person either died or suffered horrendous burns (P.S. every person killed or injured was innocent including the military). The flames created were evil and chased down the people to cause more suffering.

Unfortunately I was in a hurry and didn’t get to read the propaganda page by page, but I didn’t see any mention as to why the Japanese were at war with the Americans. In fact, I’m not even sure if it was clearly stated that the war was going on. The book also gave the impression that all of the Japanese people were good people and that they had done everything they possibly could have to prevent an aerial assault. I didn’t see a mention that the Japanese knew Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the bomb, was flying in a small formation or that they decided the formation was too small to worry about so they cancelled the air raid alert. The book didn’t mention how the Japanese often tortured and/or executed POW’s and kept many as slave labor, working them until they died of exhaustion or starvation. One in four prisoners died in captivity. There are estimates that 100,000 to 400,000 American POW’s were in Japan and the Japanese gave orders to execute them if the mainland was invaded. It didn’t mention that in the conventional Battle of Okinawa there were more casualties than in Hiroshima or that many of those casualties were Japanese who committed suicide because Japanese propaganda made the Americans look evil. It didn’t mention that the countries on both sides (Axis and Allies) caused significant civilian casualties. Nor did it mention that Japanese generally fought to the death, which would have made an invasion extremely deadly for both sides.

I wonder if the book had been about Nagasaki if it would have mentioned that the B-29′s flew around the city for hours before finally dropping the bomb and the radar alert had been cleared two-and-a-half hours before the bomb was dropped. I have a feeling it wouldn’t have mentioned that the Japanese government still didn’t surrender after surveying Hiroshima and being told that the devastation was caused by an atomic bomb. Obviously the government was not as concerned about the population as it should have been.

I personally feel that dropping the bomb was the right choice, but I don’t think that is the issue here. Some of the circumstances around dropping the bomb should have been very clearly stated. This novel is the equivalent of slapping your neighbor and then writing about how terrible it was when the neighbor punched you, neglecting to mention the slap. Hopefully I’ll have the chance in the near future to read this book page by page and state for-sure what it did and did not include. For right now, I’m just too amazed that this kind of crap is allowed in the children’s section of a public library, but at least it shows that the “evil” Americans truly believe in the freedom of speech.