Arrrgghhh, she's reading Junie B. Jones!!! - Page 3

[Dar]

Abridging classics bugs me *way* more than Junie B. Jones does. I think books should be read in the form that the author intended - the author used the words he wanted to, no more and no less...

I read the Junie B books aloud sometimes when I sub for first and second grades... they're fun to read aloud. The kids and I enjoy them. I get to run around as I read and stamp my feet and making Junie faces and stuff. They're probably not life-changing literature, but for kids developing their reading skills they're a lot of fun. The kids know the grammar is wrong, that's why it's funny. And if one read only books with main characters worth emulating, a lot of the "classics" would be off-limits...

My daughter mostly read Archie comics at that age. They're also not life-changing literature. She rarely reads them now, at 12. She does, however, *read*, every day, her choice. She reads things that are challenging and things that are easy, depending on her mood at the time. I do the same thing...

dar

[Charles Baudelaire]

Originally Posted by Dar

Abridging classics bugs me *way* more than Junie B. Jones does. I think books should be read in the form that the author intended - the author used the words he wanted to, no more and no less...

Ultimately, I agree, but the problem is more complex than it might seem.

Many of these excellent books get a bad rep by the time the kid encounters them, usually in high school. Spoiled by bad fiction with short sentences and the 500 most common words in the English language, a reader finds herself unprepared for sentences like, "To begin my life with the beginning of my life..." or "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago, never mind how long precisely..." or ones which actually demand a larger vocabulary not encompassed by early chapter books with bratty characters or weak "issue-of-the-week" young adult fiction. If you've grown up eating cotton candy, it's hard to chew steak.

Fact of the matter is that people like what's already familiar to them. If kids read these books in admittedly debased form when they're young, they won't be as intimidating and "scary" as they are when they're coming to them entirely fresh, having to digest not only the new characters and plots, but the unfamiliar language as well. If Pip, Estella, and Miss Havisham are already familiar friends, it's all the easier to read the real Great Expectations when older. Case in point: my dd loved her abridged versions of A Secret Garden and A Little Princess, and when we came to the "real thing," they were (of course) more difficult, but since she'd connected with them already and was already invested in the characters, it was easy to like the book and not get thrown by the language or difficulty level of the vocabulary.

The other issue is that it's hard to find good chapter books that are relatively brief, yet not stupid. Even in fake abridgements, the plot and characters in these novels still comes through and they're *still* a billion times better than anything Barbara Park ever picked out of her...printer...and sold.

Bottom line: I'd rather have my kid get 10% of David Copperfield than 100% of Junie. Others may not agree, but hey, that's the joy of a free country.

[Dar]

My experience had been different, clearly. I know many people who went from Archie comics to well-regarded literature - my entire family is in that category, actually. My experience has been that kids who can freely chose from a wide variety of reading materials eventually get bored with the Junie B's and move on to something more challenging... and they'll be moving on with the belief that reading is a pleasurable thing to do.

Rain didn't actually read many short chapter books. She read a huge bunch of comics and the entire American Girl series, in order (not great literature either) and then plucked Princess Bride from the adults section, and that was that. I guess she read Richard Bach's books, which are short chapter books, but "adult" books...

My mom wouldn't let me check out library books from the children's section of the library after I was 10 or so, because she said I was a good enough reader to read from the young adult and adult sections. I'm still angry about that. I wanted to read the kid books, even though I was capable of reading the others. Clearly my feelings are tied into this... but I think they're still valid.

As far as abridged books, a lot of "classics" make good read-alouds...

Dar

[lorijds]

I just can't agree. The abridged classics aren't the real thing at all, the language is often "updated" and flat. The plots are frequently watered down. My mother in law bought my oldest daughter a set of abridged classics; they were awful. That is one set, but I have checked others out at the library, and they aren't worth it.

One bridge for my youngest daughter was poetry, especially Shel Silverstein and Calef (?) Brown. It fulfilled the need for a richer and more mature experience, at the same time using language that wasn't beyond her for the most part.

I must add, my 9 yo is working her way through a couple of books right now; she's about halfway through the Silmarillion, and she's almost finished "The Day My Butt Went Pyscho." *I* would argue that the latter isn't worth the paper it is printed on; but she enjoyed it, just on a different level as she is enjoying the Sil. I wonder if she would be reading the Sil if I only allowed books like that, and forbade books like "The Day..."?

[daylily]

While I'm not at all a fan of abridged classics, I think that in some instances there's a place for them. For example, I'm homeschooling and wanted my 8 year old to become familiar with the myths and literature of ancient Greece. It would be patently ridiculous to expect an 8 year old to read the Odessey or the Iliad, and in this case, they're not good read-alouds either. So she read children's adaptations of those stories and children's adaptations of Greek myths and legends. So now she's familiar with the storyline and the characters, and, as Charles Baudelaire pointed out, they will be less intimidating when she has to read the real Odessey in high school. Another example would be Shakespeare's plays. What's wrong with reading children's adaptations of some of his plays? The language is difficult, even for advanced readers, so I think it's helpful to have had previous exposure to the stories.