Kid Protagonists: Discuss!

[lisa123414]

Scout, in "To Kill a Mockingbird"

and Huck Finn in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn"

 

[3113]

There's very little objectionable where your kid would come to ask you "Mommy, what's Gonorrhea?" It was and is still a very proper book.

Heh. That brings to mind the book "The Good Earth." My mom gave me an edited edition of the book when I was a kid (I must have been around nine or ten). I loved it and read it over and over again.

Mind you, it was not a kid's book--in fact it won the Pulitzer!

Anyway, there was this chapter in the book where the hero is in bed with his new bride and it read something like "Exaltation filled him..." and then the chapter ended. And I could never figure out what the hell this was all about. Why was he filled with exaltation?

Turns out my mom had given me the reader's digest version of the book. A few years later I got an unabridged copy and read it. The end of the chapter had the exaltation line as I recalled...BUT it was followed by, "He gave a laugh and seized her"!

Oooooooh! Okay. NOW it makes sense Changed everything that one line.

I don't have kids and can't speak for what a kid should or should not be allowed to read, but I can tell you this...there was no reason to protect me from that line.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I think the declination comes with the idea of an actual children's book. We have to keep in mind that kids used to read whatever books were out there along with the adults. Dickens was read aloud to the whole family. So a lot of these books were what we'd think of as "cross-over"--for adults as well as kids. Like "Tom Sawyer" and "Little Women" and even "Anne of Green Gables."
...

"National Velvet" which I never read as a kid. I was astounded at the subtleties in the story when I did read it-- not what I ever thought would be considered a "Children's Classic"

 

[3113]

Scout, in "To Kill a Mockingbird"

and Huck Finn in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn"

Okay, a lot of folk are mentioning their favorites and that's fine--but WHY did you like them? What was it about them that appealed to you?

 

[Recidiva]

Heh. That brings to mind the book "The Good Earth." My mom gave me an edited edition of the book when I was a kid (I must have been around nine or ten). I loved it and read it over and over again.

Mind you, it was not a kid's book--in fact it won the Pulitzer!

Anyway, there was this chapter in the book where the hero is in bed with his new bride and it read something like "Exhalation filled him..." and then the chapter ended. And I could never figure out what the hell this was all about. Why was he filled with exhalation?

Turns out my mom had given me the reader's digest version of the book. A few years later I got an unabridged copy and read it. The end of the chapter had the exhalation line as I recalled...BUT it was followed by, "He gave a laugh and seized her"!

Oooooooh! Okay. NOW it makes sense Changed everything that one line.

I don't have kids and can't speak for what a kid should or should not be allowed to read, but I can tell you this...there was no reason to protect me from that line.

That does sound grammatically traumatic.

Again, it really depends on the kid. I was always asking precocious questions because I read everything, and I asked everybody what stuff meant. I'd get books from all around the house, two parents, two brothers, one sister, all much older.

I specifically remember reading "Bored of the Rings" and trying to figure out what the hell was going on (National Lampoon satire, sex and drugs jokes everywhere) and also a Guiness Book of World Records thing where I DID ask "Daddy, what's syphilis?"

Eventually to avoid the discomfort, I just carried around a dictionary to avoid all the blushing and such. Grownups were weird and easily embarrassed.

 

[lisa123414]

Sorry three.

Scout was so young and so open-hearted. I don't know the words to describe, a child so guilless and naive. She saw such ugliness in the world, and yet stayed a child and did not become cynical.

Huck Finn was also a youth, trying to make his way among the established mores of the day. His friendship with Jim, and his inner conflict over it made a huge impression on me. As a child at the time, if he could see past societies' mores, I felt I could find my inner compass also, no matter what those around me said.

Both of these characters set a high standard for character, in youth and adults. I respect the writers for giving them to us.

 

[Dar~]

Colin, Mary, and Dicken of "The Secret Garden" are the first that come to mind. Burnett wrote about children, and their relationship with adults in a way that begins with a tragedy and ends in a happy ever after. Also, it's written both for children and adults. Very Disney-like, if you ask me. Colin and Mary both showed remarkable changes in their characters throughout the course of the book, Dicken not so much.

Other fond memories are Nancy Drew books, Trixie Belden books, Walter Farley's the Black Stallion books, and Julie of the Wolves.

I loved the Secret Garden. I read it so often I actually started talking Yorkshire. Her other two books are good also. The Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy. They are fantastic for all the same reasons that the Secret Garden is.

I read all the Little House on the Prairie books and loved them. I also read all the Tripod books. I couldn't get enough of Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys. I loved that they were strongly written characters. When I was older, I read the Baby Sitter's Club and then Sweet Valley High. The last I really clearly remember is the Sunset Beach books.

 

[buxxxom]

I'm of the opinion that as long as kids are reading, it doesn't matter if it's a first rate author or a mediocre one, as long as it's interesting to them in the summertime or understandable during the school year.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I'm of the opinion that as long as kids are reading, it doesn't matter if it's a first rate author or a mediocre one, as long as it's interesting to them in the summertime or understandable during the school year.

I know librarians who agree with you.

Like the one that in her review of "Eregon" for amazon.com, said that she voted for it for best book of 03 or whenever it was, because the boy writer came to her school in a cute outfit.

I don't mind that it's been popular, but it really offends me to see people who should know better call it literature, or even well-written. Children have subsisted on pulp paperbacks since forever, but they were never encouraged to read something like "Captain Underpants" until recently.

 

[lisa123414]

encouraged[/I] to read something like "Captain Underpants" until recently.

Laughing so hard that you would mention this. My first and third sons are voracious readers. They have devoured everything put before them. Number two was not such a lover of reading. I resorted to buying all the "Captain Underpants" I could get my hands on, because he liked and read them. He is currently awaiting the third installment of Eragon. By the way, he did have to read "Great Expectations" for school (ninth grade) and honestly loved the book. Still awaiting judgement on number four, he seems cut from the same cloth as number two.

As long as they read, and read, I am happy.

 

[buxxxom]

With the work that I do in our school system, I get to see the types of books being checked out by school kids at school media centers. What's astounding to me are the numbers of nonfiction books that are taken home each night. Sure, some are just to look at the pictures, but most are genuinely interested in the subject, whether it be gorillas or crafts made from balloons. I am genuinely glad that they are free to choose a book for themselves, in whatever subject they desire. Most teachers require a book on their reading level be chosen as well, but another book in any subject may accompany that.

I became a conscientious (sp?) objector to the reading rewards program my daughter's school used. She had read through the ENTIRE fiction section for her age and reading level, and no books were available at that school for her to read and earn points for, because she'd read them all (small, rural school). It was then that I became an advocate for reading for pleasure for her, and gained the approval of her classroom teacher.

I've spent enough of my life reading textbooks on subjects I disliked; I read solely for pleasure now. It may be a cookbook, current bodice-ripper, psychic Q & A, what have you, but I'll enjoy it, whatever it is. That doesn't eliminate stauncher material, just makes it imperative that I like it!

 

[Stella_Omega]

Laughing so hard that you would mention this. My first and third sons are voracious readers. They have devoured everything put before them. Number two was not such a lover of reading. I resorted to buying all the "Captain Underpants" I could get my hands on, because he liked and read them. He is currently awaiting the third installment of Eragon. By the way, he did have to read "Great Expectations" for school (ninth grade) and honestly loved the book. Still awaiting judgement on number four, he seems cut from the same cloth as number two.

As long as they read, and read, I am happy.

yeah, I know how it is, honestly, my boy resisted reading as well-- he did love to be read too, but I'd fall alseep with the book in my lap as often as not!Try Frankenstein on him, if he liked the Dickens.
And try a book called"Rumo" on him, I bet he'll love it!
Try Terry Pratchett -- The discworld books are fabulouos; the first books are perfect for his reading level, and they get more mature as they go along...


Just tell me when to shut up, haha!

Buxxxom, my sister and I read like your daughter. We went to the library weekly; we were each allowed seven books. I'd read all of mine, all of hers, whatever i could get from school, and probably something I'd snitched off my parent's bookshelves as well- every week. (no T.V)

Back in my day ,the school was upset that we already knew how to read. They were worried that we'd be bored with the "Dick And Jane" books that were, in fact, still being used. I was fascinated by them, no family that I knew looked anything like them!

 

[Vermilion]

I forgot two books I loved...
'Back Home' and...'A Little Love Song' by Michelle Magorian.

She writes Teenage girls very well and were two of the books I sneaked home so I could read the bits about puberty and <whispers> sex. Both characters in these two books are strong and rebellious and trying to assert their grown-up-ness in worlds where they are still regarded as children.

Actually, talking about those books has made me so nostalgic I'm goign to go order a copy of 'A Little Love Song' on Amazon...

tbh, I had slightly precocious literary tastes, Lorna Doone was possibly my favourite book asa child, I first read it when I was 9, closely followed by Wuthering Heights... I was (like many of you here, I imagine) an unbearable swot when it came to books... I devoured everythig in the house. A common occurrance was wandering down in my nightie just before bed, standing on a chair so I could see the bookshelves in the sitting room and pitifully flicking through all the Mary Wesleys and James Herriots trying to find material to satiate my ravenous hunger for books. Nothing has changed, I *have* to have something to read, even if it's just the back of a cereal packet at breakfast!

x
V

 

[amicus]

What a delightful thread to read and enjoy; renews my gratitude that the Author's Hangout continues to provide both challenge and entertainment.

I thought most of the way through this thread that I would offer the above appreciation only as I felt I had little to offer to the discussion.

However, being a bit more vintage than most here, I offer you a vision of growing up in the 1940's with comic books, with super hero's and radio programs, such as "Boston Blackie". "The Shadow" and many more daily and weekly radio drama's that all the kids my age used to listen to.

Like several have mentioned, my reading habits were also voracious, shelf by shelf at the local library, anything and everything until I discovered science fiction and then every author and every book in the entire library.

Of course that was followed by "Science Fiction Theatre", "The Twilight Zone", "Outer Limits" and a whole new world as television entered the scene in the 50's.

So of course, books, always books, but a child's education in the 20th century was expanded by radio and television and I think an understanding of children's literature requires that acknowledgment.

The 'why' 3113 asked, I think, is the adventure and the learning process, especially in science fiction as new worlds are discovered and explored. Perhaps that is a male viewpoint.

If any one recalls the author of a story, "The Widget, The Wadget and the Boff", which as I recall I read in a science fiction anthology a long long time ago, I would appreciate the reference.

Amicus

(Edited to add: The avatar is Emma Watson, Hermione Granger of the Harry Potter books and films since that was oft mentioned in the thread.)

 

[NoJo]

I was never made to read, and I used to read a lot. I think its the height of folly to make kids read (but of course they should be made to think).

It's up to writers and publishers, not parents, to encourage literacy.

 

[starrkers]

I know librarians who agree with you.

Like the one that in her review of "Eregon" for amazon.com, said that she voted for it for best book of 03 or whenever it was, because the boy writer came to her school in a cute outfit.

I don't mind that it's been popular, but it really offends me to see people who should know better call it literature, or even well-written. Children have subsisted on pulp paperbacks since forever, but they were never encouraged to read something like "Captain Underpants" until recently.

Two of my three kids could read before they started school (the third got them to read to him, so he didn't need to read ).
My 9 yr old son went off reading last year. Wouldn't read unless forced to. I tore my hair out looking for something to interest him. I eventually found it in a $4.95 book with chapters from a number of classics - Tom Sawyer being the one I expected him to enjoy.
I was wrong. He took to Sherlock Holmes. And he thinks Captain Underpants is an insult to his intelligence (the 7 yr old on the other hand...)

 

[Recidiva]

Two of my three kids could read before they started school (the third got them to read to him, so he didn't need to read ).
My 9 yr old son went off reading last year. Wouldn't read unless forced to. I tore my hair out looking for something to interest him. I eventually found it in a $4.95 book with chapters from a number of classics - Tom Sawyer being the one I expected him to enjoy.
I was wrong. He took to Sherlock Holmes. And he thinks Captain Underpants is an insult to his intelligence (the 7 yr old on the other hand...)

I started to read around three years old. I've always been really hyperlexic. And my siblings were all 7-10 years older than I was. I was always picking up what they were reading.

My mom said that I cry the biggest tears she'd ever seen. I'd say stuff like "Everyone has their own copy of the "Lord of the Rings" books but ME!"