Scan barcode
A review by mrchance
We Don't Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins
3.0
Do we need to experience something first-hand in order to have empathy for the same thing happening to others? Does what we do to other people need to be done to us in order to change our own behavior? We Don't Eat Our Classmates suggests that is the case. Penelope T-Rex eats all her classmates on the first day of school. Then they don't want to be friends with her. Sometimes she occasionally eats one as a snack, but she spits them out quickly. Resisting the urge to eat children is hard. After a goldfish bites her finger, she realizes how much it must suck to be eaten, and she stops doing it. "Once Penelope found out what it was like to be someone' snack, she lost her appetite for children."
This is a popular narrative arc, both in children's and adult fiction. I've read many stories like this -- asshole is an asshole until someone is an asshole to them in the exact same way they're an asshole, then they change their ways. This is a cute twist on that trope, but is that the way it has to be? Is experiencing pain the only way to develop true empathy? Or is it just a more dramatic way to tell a story? Like Penelope lying awake thinking about how her classmates taste, I'll be up for a while thinking about these questions.
This is a popular narrative arc, both in children's and adult fiction. I've read many stories like this -- asshole is an asshole until someone is an asshole to them in the exact same way they're an asshole, then they change their ways. This is a cute twist on that trope, but is that the way it has to be? Is experiencing pain the only way to develop true empathy? Or is it just a more dramatic way to tell a story? Like Penelope lying awake thinking about how her classmates taste, I'll be up for a while thinking about these questions.