Killing long a part of children's books.

• Position: Literature

If you think the Hunger Games novels are too violent for their intended young readers, try rereading classic children's books from the past. From Snow White to Tarzan of the Apes to Harry Potter, literature for children and teens always has been awash in violence and killing, according to Michelle Ann Abate, associate professor of literature for children and young adults at Ohio State University, Columbus.

"There has been a lot of hand-wringing recently about the final installments of the Harry Potter books and the Hunger Games novels because of their violence, but that level of violence is nothing new for children's books," claims Abate, author of Bloody Murder: The Homicide Tradition in Children's Literature. "We tend to have a selective memory that forgets the detailed and sometimes graphic violence found in some classic books for children."

One need look no further than the quintessential children's stories (fairy tales) to find deathly violence. In the Grimm Brothers' version of Snow White, the title character is murdered not once, but multiple times. Homicide is common in a number of famous American books for children, particularly boys' adventure stories--playing a key role in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Jack London's The Call of the Wild, and Buck Wilson's The Lone Ranger and The Menace of Murder Valley.

Even the relatively mild-mannered Nancy Drew mystery stories that enchanted young girls for decades are filled with at least the potential of fatal violence. "No one is ever killed in a Nancy Drew story, but every single novel features the threat of murder, often multiple times," Abate points...