Violence in Children's Books

Call me weird, but I have always found violent content in fiction more offensive than sexual content. I guess that makes me more European than American, or something. I mean, seriously, which is worse? Showing a loving, consenting act of devotion (or even, you know, how our bodies look without clothes), or showing someone getting shot in the face?

(That being said, I'm not opposed to violence in fiction, even children's fiction. Kids are more mature than a lot of us give them credit for. I'm just pointing this all out. I personally think violence is only an issue when it's glorified.)

But it continues to astound me how much of an emphasis our society places on visual fiction versus written fiction and the different standards for each. Minors can't buy an R-Rated movie but anyone can buy a romance novel with explicit sex scenes at Wal-Mart. And who can forget all the hullabaloo about minors being able to buy Fifty Shades of Grey, no questions asked?

And then there's the odd world of children's books. I've mostly noticed this in the genre of animal fiction (which has steadily gained in popularity over the last six years or so) that scenes and actions depicting pretty graphic violence are oddly enough the norm. Scenes that would never be put in an animated kids' cartoon, no matter how old the target audience might be, are rather prevalent in books.

Case in point? Scourge's murder of Tigerstar in Warriors, the rather graphic deceptions of injury and illness in The Guardian Herd, and the cruelty and horrible ways dragons die in Wings of Fire.

My guess? I think we, as a society, place a higher intellectual value on reading. If you read a lot, you're smart right? By extension, this means you might be mature enough to handle reading about a cat getting eviscerated. (Whether or not this is true.) Another explanation might be because these books depict animals harming one another, and not humans doing the same things.

Agree? Disagree? Thoughts? Comment!