'Bunny Suicides' cartoon book pulled in China after boy, 12, kills himself

13 April 2012

A cartoon book has been taken off the shelves by a Shanghai bookstore over fears that it has contributed to a spate of suicides and suicide attempts by children.


Bookuu Book City has stopped selling 'Book of Bunny Suicides: Little Fluffy Rabbits Who Just Don't Want To Live Anymore' after a 12-year-old boy killed himself and four teenagers attempted suicide.

The book shows a rabbit trying to kill himself in various bizarre ways.

Bunny Suicides: But the book has been pulled after a 12-year-old boy died and four others attempted to kill themselves

Bunny Suicides: But the book has been pulled after a 12-year-old boy died and four others attempted to kill themselves

The 12-year-old who took his life, whose name was not released, jumped from his family's sixth-floor apartment as his family waited downstairs to take him to school.

Newspaper photos showed his heartbroken mother cradling him in her arms.

Now the bookstore is stocking more psychological help guides instead.

The decision reflects unease and soul-searching over the pressures on Chinese students.

"We took the 'Bunny Suicides' cartoon books off our shelves because we're worried that children might try to imitate some of those ways of killing themselves," said Zhu Bin, a public relations officer for the bookseller.

In just over a week after the school term began September 1, one boy killed himself and another four teens attempted to commit suicide, prompting a flurry of commentary in Shanghai's state-run newspapers blaming the exam-oriented educational system for imposing excessive pressure on students.

The book features the bunny's bizarre attempts to kill himself

The book features the bunny's bizarre attempts to kill himself

One 17-year-old boy was caught attempting to jump into Suzhou Creek, a downtown river, by his parents at about 1 a.m. on September 8. Later in the day he jumped in the river and was rescued by a passer-by, the newspaper Shanghai Daily and other reports said.

Another 17-year-old took an overdose of sleeping pills but was saved by his grandmother. Several others jumped or threatened to jump from buildings.

According to a recently issued report by the China Mental Health Association, suicide is the leading cause of death for Chinese aged 15-34, with the national rate triple the world average.

"Those children suffer from a lack of real love from the family, or they're suffering heavy study burdens," said Li Shuzhen, a consultant at the Psychological Health Education Center at Shanghai's Fudan University.

Withdrawing the book is "better than nothing," she said. "But what I care about is whether it would help. We need to appeal to the public to care more about teenagers' mental health."

The book was meant to be morbidly humourous - but now the shop is replacing it with psychological self-help books

The book was meant to be morbidly humourous - but now the shop is replacing it with psychological self-help books

Zhu, at Bookuu Book City, said his shop pulled suicide-related books like the bunny cartoons, fearing kids might copy some of the ideas - though most are too preposterous to even consider. The store instead is stocking more psychological help guides, he said.

"There's a movie classification system to help protect teenagers, but the book publication industry has no such system," Zhu said. "They can read any book in the store even if it's meant just for adults."

The bunny suicide book, by American author Andy Riley, shows a bunny inside a toaster, throwing a boomerang with a live grenade attached, two bunnies sunning themselves on a beach while the other animals file into Noah's Ark - and other more gruesome scenarios involving helicopter rotor blades, a guillotine, jet engines and so on.

Riley's books inspired a similar series by local cartoonist Liu Gang that portays the rabbit in a Chinese context. His version, for example, shows a bunny sitting on top of a huge firecracker as he ignites it, injecting himself with counterfeit medicine, and waiting to be squashed by a bulldozer used by anti-piracy authorities to crush fake watches and DVDs.

Still, others questioned the need to withdraw the "Bunny Suicide" book from the market; anyone determined to see the cartoons can find them online.

"The book is popular and although its name sounds a bit horrible, it's actually very funny, full of black humor," said He Qunxing, marketing manager for Shanghai Dazhong Book Mall, another major local bookstore.

Such books might actually help readers to relieve stress, He said.

"The cartoon bunny's attempts to commit suicide are ridiculous. They're obviously meant to be funny," she said, adding, "The pressures those poor children face come from reality, not a comic book."

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