Some of our Franco-Belgian BDs certainly can stand next to these books. If not too many.
Legolas Send a noteboard - 24/05/2011 10:49:04 PM
He turns his biggest readers into "librarians" (they manage the loans and advise) and devotes the last hour on fridays to a kind of book club activity, ie: those who want to present the books they read to others, some write appreciations/critics and everyone who wants to get to pick a new book (they can also pick more on any day, if they're there, and not on a waiting list). It's a lot of management but he has a lot of success with it.
Sounds like a good system.
I sent him your list. He thinks 50 books/year is a great deal too many for most, only the top fourth of his students reach (or exceed - a few almost double it) that number, the average is more around 25 (and the lower fourth read an average of 10 books during the year). He thinks on average the kids are too slow readers to afford to read a book a week, and they don't have (nor should have) that much time to read.
Agreed, 50 books per year as a general target would've been ambitious even twenty years ago, and now it's absurd.
About the selection it's quite different, in part because we're francophones, but about 25% of those books are in his library (Dahl, Gaiman, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Laura Ingalls, Tolkien (he has LOTR too, though), Colfer, Rowling, Pullman, Snicket, Twain, Funke and others).
Not very surprising that he'd have a list more European in some ways but quite American/Canadian (Ingalls Wilder, Maud Montgomery - those aren't authors who are known at all here) in others, I guess.
He finds the list runs too heavily in Fantasy/magic. He's limited it to 25%. He finds it lacking in the mystery genre, as well as in the more "realistic" stories (but he said he didn't know many of these books and may be mistaken with his guessing). He has a much higher percentage of novels in historical settings (He places anything from Ann of Green Gables/Little House to The Three Musketeers and a few of the Verne titles in that category), and he has many graphic novels and "comics" (ie: bande dessinée - French/Belgian classics and more unusual stuff), and some "interactive books". What surprised him most about the list is how anglo-saxon centric it is (and too many Dahl to his taste). 40% of his books are written in French, 30% are from the UK/USA (in translation, of course) and 30% are a selection of youth literature from around the world - to open the kids up to other culture and stimulate their curiosity for them. The numbers might a bit skewed, because he has 30 books of non-fiction throw in.
I'm guessing the BDs include Tintin, Asterix of course, some Spirous, maybe a few of the best Alix... Blake & Mortimer might be a tad overambitious for that age.
I have to disagree about the Dahl. You can never have too much Dahl, though I for one would have picked Matilda and The Witches over Danny. But too much fantasy, yes, agreed.
I really don't think I know a single French book for that age, though (actually written for that age, I mean, not adult books that a precocious reader that age could read). Interesting. Children's literature is less international than adult literature in any case, I think, not counting picture books for the very youngest, but still it's weird that I can't think of any French ones, while I do know and did read numerous British ones and some American/Canadian, German, Scandinavian ones.
A few anglo-saxon titles he found curiously absent? A few of the easiest Agatha Christie, some Stephen King, Miéville's Un Lun Dun, Swift.
True, I think I read Christie at that age. And some King.
Personally I would have liked to see a few Verne on the list (through personally I read Verne ealier than 11 y.o.)
True, 20,000 Lieues Sous Les Mers or Le Tour du Monde en 80 Jours should be quite doable.
50 books for 11-yearolds
- 24/05/2011 11:11:20 AM
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Reasonably good list.
- 24/05/2011 01:32:40 PM
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Pretty good, but I'd like to see a bit more hard sci-fi in there.
- 24/05/2011 01:48:57 PM
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Re: 50 books for 11-yearolds
- 24/05/2011 01:57:09 PM
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Re: 50 books for 11-yearolds
- 24/05/2011 02:53:28 PM
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Re: 50 books for 11-yearolds
- 24/05/2011 03:40:51 PM
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Re: 50 books for 11-yearolds
- 24/05/2011 04:30:56 PM
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Re: 50 books for 11-yearolds
- 25/05/2011 02:12:48 PM
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Some of our Franco-Belgian BDs certainly can stand next to these books. If not too many.
- 24/05/2011 10:49:04 PM
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You don't know of any French-language books for that age? What about Le Petit Prince?
- 24/05/2011 11:59:37 PM
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Re: You don't know of any French-language books for that age? What about Le Petit Prince?
- 25/05/2011 01:59:59 PM
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I did forget that one, but I tend to think of it more as an ageless book than a children's book.
- 25/05/2011 07:48:09 PM
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Re: Some of our Franco-Belgian BDs certainly can stand next to these books. If not too many.
- 25/05/2011 03:04:27 PM
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Re: Some of our Franco-Belgian BDs certainly can stand next to these books. If not too many.
- 25/05/2011 08:05:58 PM
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I think most "reading" children will have read those books before age 11.
- 24/05/2011 02:22:49 PM
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As far as unforgiveable omissions go, Lindgren comes to mind, as does Ende.
- 24/05/2011 10:36:49 PM
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