Bambi (Bambi)

Rating:
Summary: Here Is the Real Bambi
Review: This is not the nauseatingly cute and precious Disney version. This is the REAL Bambi, the version where a terrible creature called MAN is the enemy, and where the cute and cuddly forest creatures die, and die horribly because of said MAN.

Like Black Beauty, Bambi is a plea for the rights of animals. The message was not lost on me as a young girl, nor is it lost on me now. The senselessness of hunting (my personal point of view) is described in terms an older child can understand--and remember. But a word to parents. Bambi's beloved, gentle, wonderful mother is shot and dies. That's enough to traumatize a young child right there (I didn't do so well with it either, and I was around 8 or 9). There is a vicious, graphically described forest fire. There is the death of the noble, revered (both by Bambi, the forest creatures, and the reader) Great Stag. In the end, Bambi comes into great stagdom himself, and we look to him to continue to try to save the forest and everybody in it.

This is a book, however innocent it seems, that can literally change a life. It did mine, and I know it did others whom I knew and have met since. My lifelong horror of hunting definitely came from this book, as did my reluctance to "cull" the deer that run wild in suburban Pennsylvania, eating one's roses. I don't want them to do it, and I see the logical reason for a "cull," but I cannot abide the thought.

I think every older child should read this version of Bambi as part of one's coming of age. It's a masterpiece of its kind.

Rating:
Summary: What did I just read?
Review: Those of you who pick up Bambi expecting a disney-like story will be very surprised. Instead of a fairy tale land of flowers and butterflies, you find a much harsher setting where survival of the fittest is often a humbling reality. The sad hardships of Bambi and friends really strike home.

I enjoyed this book mostly because it made me think, and although it was depressing, a book that evokes no emotion in the reader is not my idea of a great book.