[meteorite-list] Children's Lit (was OT^2 Vesta)

From: tracy latimer <daistiho_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:38:48 +0000
Message-ID: <SNT120-W16CB85849ED22D7C8766E5CA4A0_at_phx.gbl>

Oohhhh boy.? As a children's librarian, this is a tricky subject.? Comparing _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_ to _The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet_ is rather like comparing fresh, perfectly ripe strawberries to filet mignon.? Both are food, both are wonderful in their own way, and both may not be to one or another person's taste (one may be a devout vegetarian, while the other has an allergy and an aversion to strawberries).? Since both have apparently stood the test of time (we have copies of both in our library, and both still circulate), I am happy to see them simply being borrowed and reread.? Presently, the trick is finding books that pry children away from their console games and Facebook to read.? Harry Potter, although not exactly great literature of the caliber of Huckleberry Finn, did that in spades, and introduced a generation of kids to the idea of reading for pleasure.? If it gets them to read, I grit my teeth and find them Hannah Montana or the novelization of the Transformers mov
ie.? Teaching kids to read for knowledge or discrimination can come later; the first thing is to get them to read at all, and develop that habit.

Boy has this thread taken a long strange journey!

Best!
Tracy Latimer

----------------------------------------
> To: iann at rom.on.ca; Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com; nakhladog at comcast.net; sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net
> Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2011 12:35:52 -0400
> From: mexicodoug at aim.com
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] OT^2 Vesta
>
> (Canada - see #4 below)
>
> I loved Charlie and wouldn't think of letting anyone's opinion change
> that in any way. But understanding what was at the root of the
> disagreement is important. Another favorite author, Ursula Le Guin
> weighed in strongly on the side of Eleanor Cameron ... To them Charlie
> was the Simpsons vs. the light.
>
> I think it is important to put this in context. Charlie took the
> country by storm and was so popular among children that plenty of the
> old literature was tossed aside. What's your favorite book? I would
> have answered Charlie for a time... Eleanor Cameron's opinions do
> absolutely nothing to affect my enjoyment and memory of her stories,
> they are on their own merit classics and could have been written by the
> wicked witch of the west for all I care. I'm not old enough to have
> read them originally but my interest in space travel was also
> influenced greatly by the first book (which I lucked out and won in a
> spelling bee in 3rd grade by a teacher who recognized my early
> interests, though my sppeling is still at that level).
>
> Going one step further, I see Cameron's points of view and am receptive
> to them. Receptive doesn't mean agreement, just that she is definitely
> not a twit! America was modernizing just coming off the civil rights
> movement and still dealing with the equal rights amendment fallout for
> women, and there were still many fissures. It wasn't a case of one
> 'twit', it was a full fledged 50% / 50% argument where everyone had an
> opinion. Her objections really went something like these four
> categories if you read the entire exchange:
>
> 1- that children were becoming taken over by television instead of
> reading, action, one dimensional villains and heroes, and now the
> kiddie literature was going in that direction
> 2 - that Charlie was a cruel book
> 3 - that the characters were superficial in Charlie
> 4 - that locking up a race of African pygmies with green hair and
> forcing Charlie's grandparents by that removing them against their
> will, to live in the confines of a closed, walled chocolate factory
> forever, similar to the situation of the African tribe, was not the way
> children should view interactions with elderly.
>
> For #1, it was the beginning of the complaint that television - it
> still is a valid argument today
> For #2, kids thought it was funny, when other children were stuffed in
> tubes or inflate into giant blueberries until they exploded, etc.
> Well, plenty of fairy tales are cruel. Eleanor would have loved Harry
> Potter for a change.
> For #3 Charlie's cohort winners had no character development
> whatsoever, they were just there to stereotype and abuse; Charlie's
> extreme poverty was never explored, just exploited as a prop and the
> solution to life was getting a piece (or factory) of candy. well,
> welcome to the real world ;-(
> For #4, we are not in the right times to judge the sensitive racial
> issue as the country was going through pains at the time - something
> absent in Canada, and seeing it as a Canadian, it must have been
> tempting for everyone to offer an opinion. She was respectful about
> it.
>
> #4 continued: The issue about the elderly has special meaning to me now
> and is disconcerting. I never would have understood it until a few
> years ago and I really do wish that Charlie was kinder than it was by
> describing them as one dimensional old farts you had to force to do
> kids things. This is the only thing I would change since the original
> edition of Charlie. Funny, other things were changed in later
> editions, but I don't believe this was changed at all.
>
> While Eleanor Cameron would rather lock up kids in real life and do her
> best to entertain them by stimulating creativity, it is a bit ironic to
> me that she was going to restrict them from their candy. But if you
> know her books, they all have a sense of hope, adventure, a great deal
> of character development and descriptions to feed the mind, and left me
> wanting to lock myself up in a basement doing science. Charlie left me
> wanting to hunt meteorites while watching the three-stooges. Charlie
> seems to have mostly won ... I love both books! I'd put Charlie in a
> classic along with Candide and Mushroom Planet in the category of ...
> well in its own category, no other book made me feel the emotion of
> seeing David and Chuck's rocket they had built from junk components
> glistening in to moonlight together with the scintillating Monterey
> Bay, and their preparations and space travel ... and the incredibly
> woven plot ...
>
> Kindest wishes
> and pardon to those who would lynch Mrs. Cameron due to a difference in
> opinion!
> Both authors are great!
> Doug

                                               
Received on Mon 18 Jul 2011 01:38:48 PM PDT