Minnesota's Freeborn County Crisis Response Team and Rose Olmsted Defend Coloring Book With Smoldering Twin Towers

Once again, FEMA is entangled in another scandal. Rose Olmsted, the coordinator behind a children's coloring book that was pulled from FEMA's Web site last week is defending her work, despite its controversial and insensitive cover, which shows a child's drawing of New York's Twin Towers on fire with a plane flying toward them.

Minnesota's Freeborn County Crisis Response Team developed "A Scary Thing Happened," downloadable coloring book, which was designed to help children cope with disaster, following a local tornado in 2003. It was posted on The Smoking Gun Web site after FEMA took it down last week. Ms. Olmsted said the coloring book has been distributed to "thousands" of children as a way to help them deal with disasters. Even children in Australia colored its pages following that nation's recent wildfires, she said in an interview with Fox News.

"I stand firm that it was a very well thought-out and useful resource for kids," Olmsted told FOXNews.com. "But it's obviously being misinterpreted by a lot of people."

Olmsted, who acknowledged that no 9/11 victim groups were contacted prior to the release of the 25-page coloring book, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent a letter to her organization six year ago to recognize a job well done.

"It's not distributed to just any child — it's intended to be used in a number of ways, with parents reading it, pastors, Boy Scout leaders," Olmsted said. "Kids of coloring age have a difficult time speaking about their experiences. When they’re drawing, it's much easier for them to speak about their experiences, and it's very useful in that context." Olmsted suggested that the controversy over the book was linked to Monday's flyover of Lower Manhattan by a presidential plane and an F-16 jet. Source: Fox News

Why am I not surprised that nobody from FEMA realized that picture was very insensitive to the victims of September 11 and their families. Teaching kids how to handle traumatic events should be done in a toned-down manner, not with something as violent as the terrorist attacks that crippled this country for weeks, with the effects still lingering today. I don't think the idea of using that depiction was malicious. It was just not done in good taste.

Click here to view the coloring book.