usually I don't like it when I upset my kids making them angry or sad
but the other day I was happy to have done so
for it was not me who did it but h
khalid Hosseni.
and it was not for the horrific rape. I admit I changed that to a beating with brass knuckles instead. youngest was 8! I did not feel ready to open her eyes to such atrocities as a rape of a child yet.
it was what happened after.
they had all the righteous indignation of children at a hero who behaves like a coward. who does not stop his friend being hurt because he was scared, cared more about approval from his father and perhaps deep down felt the friend was nore servant and dispensable than friend.
even the not stopping him didn't upset them as much as what happens next. when hassan comes trying to rekindle friendship again but amir, torn by guilt, lashes out at him telling him the one thing hasan can do for him is to stop bothering him. there. at that point I had to stop for one was on the verge of tears and the other was glaring daggers ( at me, the poor messenger). and hitting me too in her despair.
that was pain too close to their hearts unfairness of children
inability to deal with complex emotions and acting up in other ways.. that's how the adult reader sees it anyway. but for the child. the sheer un fairness of it. life should be fair. but it isn't. and to realise that... to have known it before personally is one thing but to see it in a book too, that somehow universalizes unfairness. that hit hard and we had to stop.
