This is a very strange essay from The New Yorkers Rebecca Mead. She is nervous that todays kids books, written in a modern style in order to be more accessible to their audience, are... well, TOO accessible: What if the... accessibility of Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods proves so alluring to young readers that it seduces them... away from an engagement with more immediately difficult incarnations of the classics, Greek and otherwise? Thats from the final paragraph of the essay, where she finally completes a thought started several hundred words earlier, about how Rick Riordans books prompt an uneasy interrogation of the popular notion that all reading is good reading. In between those two points, she says things like, Undoubtedly, Riordan has single-handedly sparked an enthusiasm among young readers for Greek mythology. She also says, To hear one’s offspring excitedly explain that camp was rained out because Poseidon made it rain, and that Zeus has been throwing thunderbolts, is enough to warm the heart of even the most skeptical defender of the Western literary tradition. So she sees with her own two eyes that children are learning something from these books -- more than learning; they are truly engaged. And yet STILL she feels she must wring her hands, because the books are not written in a stiff, literary style, preferring instead to make mention of Wikipedia and iPhones and the latest kiddie slang. Mead made an odd choice when she chose to focus on the Percy Jackson books, which are demonstrably educational. But even if she had aimed her gaze elsewhere, her thesis is shaky. Kids books are not supposed to wind up the key in a childs back so that they march in a straight line over to Shakespeare and Proust. Kids books are supposed to get kids to enjoy reading. What happens next is up to parents and teachers, as well as the children themselves. My daughter reads Jeff Kinney on her own, and together weve read a dozen of Shakespeares plays, listening to audio productions as we read along. She enjoys both authors very much. (She started with kid-ified graphic novels of Shakespeare, by the way.) If you think your kids are ready for the classics, then sit down and read with them and find out. If theyre not interested in one book, try something else. (My daughter hated Tom Sawyer.) Approach it as fun, approach it with love, and for heavens sake, dont treat it as Important Literature That They Must Absorb. And if they prove not yet interested, thats not because Rick Riordan, or any childrens author, has rotted their brains. Guided by your patient enthusiasm, theyll get there. In the meantime, let them enjoy reading!
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 19:27:27 +0000
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