One certainly has to choose the real literature to present, certainly.
Tom Send a noteboard - 07/06/2011 02:27:00 PM
I doubt that a 13-year-old will fully appreciate The Brothers Karamazov, but Crime and Punishment is certainly something they could enjoy. Tolstoy is very easy to enjoy at that age. I also think A Tale of Two Cities would serve as a good introduction to Dickens, and To Kill a Mockingbird certainly. Boys of that age tend to love The Catcher in the Rye. I think that dystopian novels are also good for that age group - Animal Farm, 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 - and Stendhal is also a good choice. Twain tends to be a perennial favorite in that category (or really, in all honesty, almost any American author other than Melville). Kipling is also great for that age group.
I would, on the other hand, definitely stay away from Kundera, from Thomas Mann, from Joyce, from Voltaire, from Goethe, from most Dostoevsky, from Pasternak, from Bulgakov, from Hesse, from Kafka, from Cervantes, from the Brontes, from most poets and certainly from the historical plays by Shakespeare at a minimum.
I would, on the other hand, definitely stay away from Kundera, from Thomas Mann, from Joyce, from Voltaire, from Goethe, from most Dostoevsky, from Pasternak, from Bulgakov, from Hesse, from Kafka, from Cervantes, from the Brontes, from most poets and certainly from the historical plays by Shakespeare at a minimum.
Political correctness is the pettiest form of casuistry.
ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius
Ummaka qinnassa nīk!
*MySmiley*
ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius
Ummaka qinnassa nīk!
*MySmiley*
This WSJ article has kicked up a huge fuss on the internet - YA is "too dark".
- 05/06/2011 03:46:50 PM
2116 Views
There's only one thing about this literature that disturbs me
- 05/06/2011 05:39:35 PM
1099 Views
This is a thought out, finely articulated response.
- 05/06/2011 06:47:13 PM
1097 Views
If it were just vampires that would be just fine
- 05/06/2011 08:03:02 PM
879 Views
People have been complaining about this since the novel was invented
- 05/06/2011 11:02:58 PM
946 Views
Apparently the article did paint far too bleak a picture,
- 06/06/2011 12:39:46 PM
1038 Views
Why waste time with "YA literature" at all?
- 06/06/2011 02:14:03 PM
816 Views
Re: Why waste time with "YA literature" at all?
- 06/06/2011 02:28:42 PM
771 Views
I think that's a post factum justification, not a reason.
- 06/06/2011 05:08:09 PM
972 Views
Maybe. It's hard to separate, I think.
- 07/06/2011 01:06:29 PM
1002 Views
One certainly has to choose the real literature to present, certainly.
- 07/06/2011 02:27:00 PM
1044 Views
Very good post.
- 06/06/2011 08:52:22 PM
854 Views
You seem to be the only one who thinks so. 
*NM*
- 07/06/2011 01:17:18 AM
304 Views
*NM*
- 07/06/2011 01:17:18 AM
304 Views
I don't think it's a bad post... I just think that the "despair" is a teen fad, and not as bad as
- 07/06/2011 03:19:03 AM
1098 Views
Suicide rates have gone up significantly
- 07/06/2011 02:42:55 PM
763 Views
Heh.
- 08/06/2011 07:24:44 PM
1072 Views
you are having trouble finding cultural ideas that turned bad?
- 08/06/2011 11:56:23 PM
995 Views
The classic problem of the overprotective parent- underestimating your kids
- 09/06/2011 05:33:54 AM
939 Views
the classic problem of people who have no idea what they are talking about
- 09/06/2011 04:16:25 PM
876 Views
Are you really equating reading about trauma with trauma? They are not the same. *NM*
- 09/06/2011 07:10:34 PM
322 Views
I'm sure the percentage of good books must be higher than they make it sound,
- 05/06/2011 05:53:21 PM
1131 Views
I'd say books offer a fundamentally different experience than movies
- 05/06/2011 06:53:55 PM
1090 Views
I'm not sure that makes a difference here.
- 06/06/2011 04:47:05 AM
1069 Views
Because thinking makes you LESS susceptible to these things you're afraid of
- 06/06/2011 05:27:26 PM
1097 Views
I don't completely agree with that.
- 06/06/2011 07:26:21 PM
1057 Views
I feel like I just can't relate to parents determined to shelter their kids from everything
- 06/06/2011 10:21:44 PM
1028 Views
To think the content described is acceptable, when they ban "Huck Finn" for using 'nigger'. 
*NM*
- 05/06/2011 09:45:15 PM
329 Views
*NM*
- 05/06/2011 09:45:15 PM
329 Views
CNN: "On a website, a person named 'Macharius' used the 'N-word'".
- 06/06/2011 01:58:35 AM
810 Views
Parents have the right and resonsibility to know what their children are reading
- 06/06/2011 03:41:22 AM
840 Views
Re: Parents have the right and resonsibility to know what their children are reading
- 06/06/2011 12:40:24 PM
976 Views
I'd argue if you're old enough to be interested in the subject matter, you're old enough to read it
- 06/06/2011 05:32:33 PM
1103 Views
Depends on the subject matter.
- 07/06/2011 01:07:57 PM
852 Views
Basically? Yes.
- 07/06/2011 06:42:04 PM
1097 Views
why do think there is value in letting them read whatever they want?
- 07/06/2011 06:52:20 PM
769 Views
Don't be an idiot.
- 09/06/2011 05:25:26 AM
955 Views
Well, I wrote a long piece related to this
- 06/06/2011 05:21:06 AM
1052 Views
Great post. She really tries to muddy the waters relating to censorship and parenting.
- 06/06/2011 08:05:21 AM
919 Views
She kind of conflates some issues that are quite different, if you ask me.
- 06/06/2011 08:47:33 PM
987 Views
Wait wait wait wait wait... NYT reviewed Game of Thrones? I must read this
- 07/06/2011 03:20:08 AM
856 Views
Having now read one of the books mentioned, Cheryl Rainfield's Scars...
- 08/06/2011 02:18:23 AM
1098 Views