Book Week upset
It is Book Week across Australia when primary school aged children are urged to celebrate books by dressing up as a character from a book…including one of a boy in a concentration camp.
When blogger Bron Maxabella posted an article about finding a Book Week costume, one option she suggested was that children could wear striped pyjamas. This was referencing John Boyn’s book ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’.
The character of the book’s title is a child who was being held at a Nazi death camp during World War II.
Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the Anti -Defamation Commissions slammed the post, stating that he couldn’t believe the “shocking level of ignorance demonstrated by the person who authored this list”.
“’I had no thought beyond honouring a book that I love. I acknowledge and own the fact that it was a thoughtlessly insensitive mistake” said Maxabella subsequently on the site’s Facebook page.
“We have deleted the post with sincere apologies to all of you” said Megan Daley who runs the website Children’s Book Daily in which the list of suggestive costumes appeared.
Comments on The Daily Mail site ranged from suggesting it could be seen from an educational standpoint to one saying the fact that the book was included on the list showed an awareness of the history of Jewish persecution. One blogger could not see why certain characters should be off-limits.
We as a community need to stop being so shrill and over-sensitive.
If the ADL continue with this type of hysteria for such a relatively minor incident, how can they expect to have a voice that will effectively resonate when an actual serious issue arises?