Mothers react with shock to the discovery of a copy of HOW TO MAKE MONEY LIKE A PORN STAR buried among the legit children’s comics at a Singapore Book Fair, and some suggest even grater scrutiny.

Books like these have upset some parents, who also complained that some graphic novels, clearly intended for mature readers, were available at the National Library.

Mrs A Chen, 40, a housewife and mother of three boys aged 8, 11 and 15, said such books should be kept in a separate section which is not accessible to children.

Another parent, Madam Haslinda Putri Harun, 36, a mother of two daughters, aged 7 and 4, said: ‘If this happens to me, I will be shocked. I think the library has to play its part and have more stringent guidelines.’

However, the director of a dental clinic added that ‘parents should also be more pro-active and check the books and programmes their children are reading and watching’.

Mr Roger Ong, 42, a counsellor with Care Corner Service Centre, agreed that parents must take an active role in supervising their children, and not just leave it to the authorities.

He said his daughter was only 2 1/2years old when she asked him: ‘Daddy, can I have sex with you?’

She had learnt the words from television. He and his wife had left the TV on and had left her unsupervised for a few minutes.

Evidently a few minutes exposure to TV radiation is all it takes to create a lifetime of shame.

UPDATE: Via Kevin Melrose, news that THe Punisher: Barracuda, and Punisher Max have both been pulled off the shelves in Singapore. And it may not end there.

However, The Punisher: Barracuda was not the only book with explicit content available there. We also found other comics from the same series with similar content. We borrowed one of them.

The comic had the words ‘explicit content’ in small print in bold on the back cover.

We alerted the National Library Board (NLB), which said it has since pulled The Punisher series from its shelves. An spokesman said that they have found the series unsuitable for loan.

She said: ‘Meanwhile, we are reviewing all the other titles in the existing adult comic collection to ensure that they meet our criteria for inclusion. We are re-examining our processes to ensure that such incidents are not repeated.’

She apologised for the slip-up but did not explain how it occurred.