Posted on 12/08/2013 6:53:26 PM PST by SeekAndFind
There are two schools of thought on this, and both have their pros and cons, and not every family will be the same, you may have to try both approaches to see which works best.
I like the idea of not necessarily creating the “forbidden fruit” of censorship, because if they want to, they will find a way to read it.
My approach is to explain to them why I believe a book, movie, or some teaching I don’t particularly agree with, is wrong and offer alternatives...If you do it the right way, it helps them to develop the one thing they need to have to succeed in life, a good “BS Detector.”
The Red Pony is a classic that should be read. I have never heard of it being assigned before senior high school where it is an appropriate read.
Island of the Blue Dolphin is just trash and shouldn’t be read by anyone.
Lemony Snickett is fun mostly for boys of the middle school years and her recommendation of A Wrinkle in Time is better suited again for high schoolers.
The other books I am unfamiliar with. Parents would do well to have their children read age appropriate classics ( where classic usually means things like Treasure Island, anything by Milne, Rudyard Kipling, Dr. Seuss, etc etc)
That’s what my parents did too. But my mother had this trick that I didn’t catch on to until I was nearly an adult. we had books everywhere (lots and lots of book cases crammed full of every type of reading material). Up on the top shelves were books carefully hidden so as not to draw attention to them. Those are the ones I went for. Read them voraciously. In my later teens I realized that the stuff I shouldn’t have read at a younger age were all on the bottom shelves and easily available. The books that were geared for my younger mind were the ones ‘secretly’ hidden away to make them more enticing and ‘taboo’. When I asked her about it, other just smiled and said ‘You read some fine literature’
“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”
Oh, Hell yes. Again and again.
If you are recommending Tolkien then be sure to add Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (though I consider those to be more appropriate for middle school and up)
I would add to this list (not that I necessarily concur with this particular list) Harriet the Spy.
It’s a “beloved classic”. But it starts with a note saying “Jesus hates you” and goes on to tell the story of a little girl who has what is essentially a nervous breakdown.
I remember as a kid how that book made me feel rather anxious and uneasy.
I'm sure you mean The Long Secret, also by the same author, Louise Fitzhugh.
That was far and away one of my favorite books. It addresses some pretty heavy themes: what is the nature of God? What does it mean to know God? Why is there injustice in the world? What does it mean to (physically) grow up? What is the nature of love and romance?
And finally: How does one deal with an evil parent? (Our heroine Beth Ellen Hansen wins in the end.)*
Great book, and as an adult I still love it.
SPOILER SPACE
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Yes, in the end we find out the identity of the person leaving the very angry (incisive, passive-aggressive) notes, but it is part of a long-overdue temper tantrum that results in eventual release from an evil and destructive parent, so the initial angry note should be taken in that context, I think.
It’s not censorship when a parent guides a child’s education. Censorship is a govt transgression.
There’s a lot of stuff to read out there and kids have no clue what is garbage and what is not. I spent too much time ingesting books with a liberal themes...I wish my parents bad steered me toward more wholesome literature so I wouldn’t have had to spend so much time later unraveling the junk I picked up.
A parent’s job is guidance...why wouldn’t that include reading?
Parents need not fear that and they should be overjoyed that their child has chosen to read as opposed to watching the dreck that is on television or getting engrossed in those infernal video games.
I have always encouraged my children to read. I've never snatched books away from them or lectured them on their choice of reading material.
When I was a child, I would read comic books, MAD Magazine and science fiction that many parents at the time forbade their children to have. I was allowed to read them to my heart's content and eventually I became bored with them. Eventually, I started reading real literature like Jack London, Mark Twain and Charles Dickens, not because my school teachers assigned it to me but because I had developed a love of reading and appreciated good writing. Yes, I also read some sexually explicit novels and even Playboy magazines as I reached puberty. But because it was not "forbidden fruit", it didn't have much appeal and I grew out of it quickly.
Me too. I’m re-reading ‘Tarzan of the Apes” after 40 or so years, after re-reading John Carter of Mars, following the movie.
There is a definite difference in books, reading as a man rather than a ten year old boy.
This is a note from Tar-zan/”White-skin” to Jane Porter after Tarzan has discovered she has defeated him.
“I am Tarzan of the Apes. I am yours. You are mine. .... Tarzan of the Apes loves you.”
Keep in mind that he cannot speak English, only write, but that’s quite a lot more than: “Me Tarzan. You Jane.”
Lemony Snicket ping….
Robert McCloskey is such a good illustrator as well.
I have to agree with Hatchet over Island of the Blue Dolphins. Gary Paulsen is quite an outdoorsman, and many of the events that the protagonist, an adolescent boy named Brian Robeson, experiences were based on Paulsen’s own adventures in the outdoors.
It is apolitical, but I still consider it conservative, in that it emphasizes self reliance, inventiveness, and hard work.
Some of the premises in the book are a little bit on the unbelieveable side at times, but not so much that they are out of the realm of possibility.
Even as an adult, I really got into the book. My students absolutely love it.
My wife went to Catholic school and between the nuns and her strict mother, she was turned off from reading forever. Instead she watches garbage on television.
I was blessed in that I had complete freedom as a child with respect to reading material. If I had a book in my hand, my mother was happy. Yes, I was exposed to some "inappropriate" content from time to time but all that did was help me become a more discriminate reader.
Do your children attend public school?
I am not sure that censorship is wrong, and I am a voracious reader.
The right book at the right time is fine, and since there is a lot of published garbage, a good discussion after a child reads the book at the right time is invaluable.
Me too, but it wasn't the result of being allowed or prohibited from reading anything.
I learned the love of reading on my own, and have read 30 to 80 books a year, both fiction and non fiction.
I never directed my daughter to read, but I did read to her in early life, and by example she picked up on it.
One Friday evening, when she was ten, I handed her a copy of Rendezvous with Rama, by Arthur C. Clark. By Sunday afternoon she asked for another similar book.
The imagination of children and hunger for knowledge is totally underrated, when cultivated from birth.
I guess so. I had forgotten I read the Long Secret.
I still have the same opinion.
As an adult reading about Fitzhugh it is understandable how her books would be uncormfatble in this manner.
you say kids go bad “from external factors”
but reading books that corrupt a kid’s morals or spiritual life is not an “external factor”?
Kids don’t go bad because of something they read. Those that go bad are either genetically predisposed to go that way or have other external factors that make it happen.
Reading is good. Totally good.
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Reading is not totally good. That is a empty statement.
There are things that are horrific out there that no child should be reading. A number of people “went bad” after reading Marx, Engles, Trotsky.
Learning judgment and discernment is just as important as reading.
I can't think of a single Steinbeck work that wasn't depressing. Not one of them has the slightest sense of hope or redemption.
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