It’s been said that children are our most endangered species.
And a big reason is media violence. A landmark University of Michigan study showed children are subjected to 200,000 acts of violence before age 18.
Hungry Mutt, a newly launched children’s book publisher, seeks to make a difference by producing works that are not only fun and engaging, but don’t use violence as entertainment or as a way to resolve conflicts.
Its debut publication, I Don’t. I Don’t. I Do!, depicts a day in the life of a young boy, conveying a timeless truth that children often find hard to grasp: that they sometimes have to do what they don’t like before they can do what they do like.
In a soon to be released book, Cootie Custard, Ana doesn’t want to go to school after kids start making fun of her. Her mother, having been ridiculed herself, helps Ana come up with a tasty solution to her problem, using a humorous approach her grandmother had used to solve her mother’s dilemma.
In another upcoming title, The Rock That Was a Bully, an inner struggle leads to the freedom of a rock trapped by its impulses. The rock’s dilemma begins when a beautiful red flower grows up beside it. The rock’s jealousy lands it at the bottom of a pond where it stays until learning that bullying won’t get it what it wants most.
Hungry Mutt invites parents and all those who share its concerns to become watchdogs and advocates for kids, in an effort to make their world a little more kind and a little less violent.
