A really good book
Jul. 21st, 2008 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
resonantThe kidlet has discovered Harry Potter.
For years I'd been kind of dreading this, because the series goes from fascinating-for-young-kids to really-inappropriate-for-young-kids very quickly, and the kidlet is not one to read books 1 through 3 and then wait a few years until their mother thinks they're prepared for, like, beloved characters being murdered onscreen and zombies and stuff. (Also I associate the books with inapproriate sexual shenanigans, but we needn't get into that.)
But they never showed the slightest interest. We did Pippi Longstocking and Laura Ingalls Wilder and Misty of Chincoteague, and then The Hobbit and the Enchanted Forest Chronicles and Amelia's Notebooks and The Jungle Book, and eventually Terry Pratchett and His Dark Materials, and last night when they said, "So. Harry Potter -- is it good?" I realized that they actually weren't too young any more.
They read the first half of Book 1 last night. "I don't want to go to bed. This is a good book." This morning I came down and found them on the couch. "I've been up since six-twenty," they said. "This is a really good book."
edited 2019 to retroactively correct the kidlet's gender pronouns
For years I'd been kind of dreading this, because the series goes from fascinating-for-young-kids to really-inappropriate-for-young-kids very quickly, and the kidlet is not one to read books 1 through 3 and then wait a few years until their mother thinks they're prepared for, like, beloved characters being murdered onscreen and zombies and stuff. (Also I associate the books with inapproriate sexual shenanigans, but we needn't get into that.)
But they never showed the slightest interest. We did Pippi Longstocking and Laura Ingalls Wilder and Misty of Chincoteague, and then The Hobbit and the Enchanted Forest Chronicles and Amelia's Notebooks and The Jungle Book, and eventually Terry Pratchett and His Dark Materials, and last night when they said, "So. Harry Potter -- is it good?" I realized that they actually weren't too young any more.
They read the first half of Book 1 last night. "I don't want to go to bed. This is a good book." This morning I came down and found them on the couch. "I've been up since six-twenty," they said. "This is a really good book."
edited 2019 to retroactively correct the kidlet's gender pronouns
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(no subject)
Date: 7/22/08 03:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/22/08 04:26 pm (UTC)lol
Date: 7/22/08 03:55 am (UTC)Re: lol
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Date: 7/22/08 04:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/22/08 04:41 am (UTC)There are few topics (pain fetishization, abuse, sexual violence) that I think could really traumatize a young child -- most other adult things will probably just be obscure and confusing (and thus probably boring). And those traumatic things are probably traumatic to many adults too.
Things like character deaths and suffering are sad to read about, but I have trouble seeing how they're at all "inappropriate" for children. These things happen in real life, and if the author makes an effort to depict them honestly and to convey specifically why they are difficult topics in the story and IRL, then it's an entirely good thing that kids be exposed to the material. WD is so direct about expressing that "these bad things are bad BECAUSE ______" that it borders on political allegory. And it could never be considered an Animal Farm-sad-and-miserable sort of allegory either. It shows good people dealing with the bad things, which is pretty much the definition of a positive message.
I started reading HP when I was 12. I was in my late teens by the time anything really upsetting happened. I don't think I was any less upset by any of the story events than I would have been at a younger age.
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Date: 7/22/08 04:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 7/22/08 06:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/23/08 03:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/22/08 07:24 am (UTC)And you know, you don't have to worry about the series getting beyond her; she'll self-monitor, I suspect. My niece dashed through 1-3, then...paused as she was reading GoF, because it was getting too dark for her. Six months later she picked the series up again because she was ready.
(no subject)
Date: 7/22/08 11:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 7/22/08 08:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/23/08 03:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/22/08 10:59 am (UTC)am taking notes. my boys are 8 and 11. Only the second one is shaping up to be a reader, capital R, but I so appreciate posts like this.
(no subject)
Date: 7/23/08 03:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 7/22/08 12:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/23/08 03:29 am (UTC)She's nine, and so far is still accepting mediated internet access. (i.e. "Here are the seven sites you may visit without adult supervision. Anything else, and an adult needs to be in the room and awake.") We'll see how long that lasts.
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Date: 7/22/08 12:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/23/08 03:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/22/08 02:03 pm (UTC)I don't think I know the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Has she read "Swiss Family Robinson"?
(no subject)
Date: 7/22/08 04:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 7/22/08 04:03 pm (UTC)Anyway, I have been reading HP aloud all year, and we are now finishing ly Hallows. I will be so sad when it's over. On to Pullman!
(no subject)
Date: 7/23/08 03:32 am (UTC)On the one hand, you're absolutely right, but on the other hand, it's not like we're needing to encourage reading. Other families make rules like "Half an hour of reading before you watch TV." Our family makes rules like "It's fine to bring a book to dinner, but you have to actually look away from it while we're saying the prayer."
(no subject)
Date: 7/22/08 05:18 pm (UTC)Oh, and A.L.'s "Ronia, the Robber's Daughter" might be a book she'd enjoy, too. As well as Michael Ende's "Momo". (much better than "Neverending Story, ihmo)
(no subject)
Date: 7/23/08 03:33 am (UTC)It isn't so much the death in HP as the pervasive darkness, but as I said to someone else, once you start in on Pullman, you're as far into darkness as you can go without actually reading horror.
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Date: 7/22/08 07:39 pm (UTC)Because it's a good book.
B
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Date: 7/23/08 03:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 7/23/08 03:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/26/08 03:02 am (UTC)Of course, if she follows in my footsteps, as soon as she discovers that fanfic exists, she'll start writing it.
I really kind of hope that this is after I'm no longer responsible for vetting her entertainment choices.
I really hope we don't ever wind up in the same fandom.
(no subject)
Date: 7/23/08 11:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/26/08 03:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/25/08 07:18 pm (UTC)Right now we're reading Pippi Langstrumpf by Astrid Lindgren and she and her sister have a lot of fun with it.
(no subject)
Date: 7/26/08 03:04 am (UTC)And the books are a tough call, aren't they? I think Philosopher's Stone would have been just fine for a seven-year-old, but some of the later ones would have been really problematic.