"He put his sickle at the neck of the male juvenile in a threatening manner," he told Stevens. "The male juvenile pushed him away, forced the kid to the ground, took the sickle away from him."
My parents got it for me when I was about 10 I think (at least that's how old I was when that book came out).
When I was little I was obsessed with the Titanic. The idea that there's an incredible structure that was a testament to engineering and ship building when it was built and now it's sitting somewhere out of human grasp just blew my mind.
I guess it depends on the kid. I read "1984" in 1984, when I was 11 years old. Then some 25 years later I read the book again, got creeped out, and couldn't believe I read it when I was young.
Vidor wrote:I guess it depends on the kid. I read "1984" in 1984, when I was 11 years old. Then some 25 years later I read the book again, got creeped out, and couldn't believe I read it when I was young.
That wasn't for school, was it? 1984 is a pretty difficult read with probably far more depth than I understood it to have when I read it at age 17.
No, I read it because it was the year 1984. I'll be honest and say my reading level was very high, but still I don't think I got the book, as I figured out when I revisited it in my thirties. That book is freaking intense.
My wife studies children's literature (in fact, she's in Boston now for the Children's Literature Association Conference), and this is an important issue--how do you discuss history in such literature--including traumatic history--without avoiding it, making it too graphic, or sanitizing it to the point that you distort it? I couldn't comment on it because I don't study it, but this is a relevant area of discussion in children's lit.
