It's often difficult to help children cope with crises and disasters, so FEMA came up with this idea (brilliant or silly? Your call): a children's coloring book of disasters. Now, the coloring book has been yanked from FEMA's website after some people complained:
The coloring book, titled “A Scary Thing Happened,” was created after the tornadoes in Glenville as a tool for children to use with a responsible parent or adult to help cope with the disaster, said Rose Olmsted, coordinator of the Freeborn County Crisis Response Team, on Wednesday. It has since been widely distributed across the country to aid children in other disasters.
Olmsted said she has not received a clear explanation from FEMA about why the coloring book is being taken down from the FEMA Web site, other than that the organization is redesigning its Web site and that there was a complaint from a parent about some of the images in the book. The cover features an image of the Twin Towers, with one tower already on fire and a plane approaching the other tower. A similar image is inside the book for children to color.
Sarah Stultz of Abert Lea Tribune has the story: http://www.albertleatribune.com/news/2009/apr/30/coloring-book-created-freeborn-county-center-natio/ - via On Deadline
I'm pretty I've read somewhere that an adult drew this coloring book. I think if they went with Koko the chimp, they would've ended up with a better product.
Yes, I'm joking. Perhaps my sarcasm and snarkiness flew under your radar.
Oddnumber:
Actually, the coloring books in my youth had some degree of artistic competence. You know, by people who can actually draw in realistic scale and perspective (for example, Batman and Robin were drawn to be smaller than the Batmobile). Just because you offer a product to children doesn't mean you ignore very, very basic artistic conventions.
Seriously, would you give this kind of crap to your child? If so, I mourn their Happy Meal existence.