Parents horrified after children’s paper hedgehogs found to contain pages from erotic novel
Some of the paper animals are believed to have been made using pages from Nicholson Baker’s 1994 erotic novel The Fermata
Parents in Merseyside were left shocked after paper hedgehogs handed to children were found to contain pages from an explicit novel.
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The handmade gifts, created from donated books by an elderly man raising money for charity, at first appeared to be a harmless gesture.
But some families were horrified to discover the paper animals had been made using pages from an erotic book.
Linda Fortune, whose four-year-old granddaughter was given one of the hedgehogs during a visit to a supermarket in Wirral, later warned other parents in a social media post after finding the paper decoration had been made using pages she described as containing “adult content” and “pure sexual stuff”.
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After sharing the post, Ms Fortune said at least seven other families had reached out to say they had also taken home hedgehogs made from explicit pages.
Jemma Ashby told the Wirral Globe she was shopping with her 10-year-old daughter at a Tesco in Merseyside when a man approached and offered them one of the handmade hedgehogs.
She said she initially thought it was a “lovely gesture” and put it on her daughter’s windowsill.
But after later seeing a Facebook post about the source material, she checked the hedgehog and said she was “disgusted” by what she found.
After being contacted by concerned parents, Merseyside Police spoke to the man, who said he was mortified and normally checked the pages before using them.
The force said on Monday they were “happy there was no malice involved and no offences have been committed," the Guardian has reported.
A spokesperson added: “The hedgehogs were created in good faith by the individual and have been used to raise money for a local charity.”
Some of the paper animals are believed to have been made using pages from Nicholson Baker’s 1994 erotic novel The Fermata.
Others have jumped to defend the creator behind the hedgehogs, saying only some contained explicit material and that the incident appeared to have been a genuine mistake.