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
1 - Is this supposed to be Manhattan? I didn't know it was one big, green hill with three office buildings and a single-family home. Of course, I've only been there once.
2 - The single family home: what the hell is going on? I think its supposed to be a tornado ripping off the roof. But why is the roof intact and flipped over? Why is the tornado so tiny? And are there tornados in Manhattan?
3 - Who buys a house that is incredibly small, and seems to comprise of two windows, one door, and a single, yellow room with a rug. Of course, if this is the only house in Manhattan then I guess beggers can't be choosers.
4 - A major city without roads. Okay. Unless one craggy, weed-choked dirt path going up the hill is the "road". No wonder New Yorkers are so grouchy.
5 - That car is colossal relative to the other objects in the picture. Must be one of those SUVs that liberals get so upset about. I guess the roll-over safety rating of this particular vehicle isn't very impressive. And the action lines emulating from the car is indicating to us that something is still happening, but what? Is the car angry?
6 - The vegetation in front of the beige office building - trees, bushes, or is it just green fire? I don't know.
7 - The twin towers are a lot smaller than I remember. Of course, they could be simply very far away from us. But then the airplane would be absolutely gigantic. I don't know.
And, seriously, an adult drew this picture.
Are you serious? Please tell me you are joking. Perhaps they should have used some architectural blueprints and a topographical map, would that make you happier? Perhaps you should log off the computer and go for a walk.
Also, I think this the colouring book is a good idea; I have no problem with this being used as a tool to help children come to terms with tragedy.
I don't hear of planes flying into office buildings very often, so I wouldn't think there is much of a need for the cover and whole page be devoted to it.
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.
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.