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
2216 Views
There's only one thing about this literature that disturbs me
- 05/06/2011 05:39:35 PM
1182 Views
This is a thought out, finely articulated response.
- 05/06/2011 06:47:13 PM
1192 Views
If it were just vampires that would be just fine
- 05/06/2011 08:03:02 PM
1009 Views
People have been complaining about this since the novel was invented
- 05/06/2011 11:02:58 PM
1035 Views
Apparently the article did paint far too bleak a picture,
- 06/06/2011 12:39:46 PM
1133 Views
Why waste time with "YA literature" at all?
- 06/06/2011 02:14:03 PM
899 Views
Re: Why waste time with "YA literature" at all?
- 06/06/2011 02:28:42 PM
851 Views
I think that's a post factum justification, not a reason.
- 06/06/2011 05:08:09 PM
1063 Views
Maybe. It's hard to separate, I think.
- 07/06/2011 01:06:29 PM
1099 Views
One certainly has to choose the real literature to present, certainly.
- 07/06/2011 02:27:00 PM
1141 Views
Very good post.
- 06/06/2011 08:52:22 PM
946 Views
You seem to be the only one who thinks so. 
*NM*
- 07/06/2011 01:17:18 AM
350 Views
*NM*
- 07/06/2011 01:17:18 AM
350 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
1190 Views
Suicide rates have gone up significantly
- 07/06/2011 02:42:55 PM
841 Views
Heh.
- 08/06/2011 07:24:44 PM
1167 Views
you are having trouble finding cultural ideas that turned bad?
- 08/06/2011 11:56:23 PM
1086 Views
The classic problem of the overprotective parent- underestimating your kids
- 09/06/2011 05:33:54 AM
1053 Views
the classic problem of people who have no idea what they are talking about
- 09/06/2011 04:16:25 PM
960 Views
Are you really equating reading about trauma with trauma? They are not the same. *NM*
- 09/06/2011 07:10:34 PM
368 Views
I'm sure the percentage of good books must be higher than they make it sound,
- 05/06/2011 05:53:21 PM
1232 Views
I'd say books offer a fundamentally different experience than movies
- 05/06/2011 06:53:55 PM
1182 Views
I'm not sure that makes a difference here.
- 06/06/2011 04:47:05 AM
1158 Views
Because thinking makes you LESS susceptible to these things you're afraid of
- 06/06/2011 05:27:26 PM
1188 Views
I don't completely agree with that.
- 06/06/2011 07:26:21 PM
1139 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
1147 Views
To think the content described is acceptable, when they ban "Huck Finn" for using 'nigger'. 
*NM*
- 05/06/2011 09:45:15 PM
374 Views
*NM*
- 05/06/2011 09:45:15 PM
374 Views
CNN: "On a website, a person named 'Macharius' used the 'N-word'".
- 06/06/2011 01:58:35 AM
891 Views
Parents have the right and resonsibility to know what their children are reading
- 06/06/2011 03:41:22 AM
927 Views
Re: Parents have the right and resonsibility to know what their children are reading
- 06/06/2011 12:40:24 PM
1081 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
1179 Views
Depends on the subject matter.
- 07/06/2011 01:07:57 PM
944 Views
Basically? Yes.
- 07/06/2011 06:42:04 PM
1186 Views
why do think there is value in letting them read whatever they want?
- 07/06/2011 06:52:20 PM
863 Views
Don't be an idiot.
- 09/06/2011 05:25:26 AM
1048 Views
Well, I wrote a long piece related to this
- 06/06/2011 05:21:06 AM
1146 Views
Great post. She really tries to muddy the waters relating to censorship and parenting.
- 06/06/2011 08:05:21 AM
1015 Views
She kind of conflates some issues that are quite different, if you ask me.
- 06/06/2011 08:47:33 PM
1082 Views
Wait wait wait wait wait... NYT reviewed Game of Thrones? I must read this
- 07/06/2011 03:20:08 AM
952 Views
Having now read one of the books mentioned, Cheryl Rainfield's Scars...
- 08/06/2011 02:18:23 AM
1183 Views