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)lol
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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.
(no subject)
Date: 7/22/08 04:47 am (UTC)I mean, I had to be carried out of E.T. 'cause I was sobbing so much ("Will he ever come back?") but it was my favourite movie as a kid. Guess I've always had a soft spot for the angst. ;)
God, does that make E.T. & Elliot my first OTP?
(no subject)
Date: 7/22/08 04:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
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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 08:30 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.
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Date: 7/22/08 11:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 7/22/08 01:16 pm (UTC)P.S. Your icon, I love it so!
(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 04:03 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!