Homework over spring break (long)

Cathy Weeks wrote:


There are two major scenes of violence, where Ender gets into fights
that he couldn't avoid. You find out that he committed genocide AFTER
the war was won - as far as he or anyone knew, he was playing on a
simulator. There are no scenes of horrific bloodshed. The whole point
of the discussion up to now is that the interpretation of what the book
is about is dependent on the age of a child. The younger child would
see the adventure, and the older would see the moral issues.

I suppose one would have to know one's own child, and what
you define as "younger." I rather suspect that either of my readers
would both get it and be distressed by it. They might not catch
all the subtleties of the book, but the genocide they'd get. It wasn't
like it was hidden or anything.

Best wishes,
Ericka

I know one of my kids will happily re-read things like Harry Potter
and Lord
of the Rings, but finds the films very scary.

Yes, we started reading the books to my stepson when he was 5. He was
fine with the first movie when it came out (when he was 7 1/2), but
after we got the DVD, he wouldn't watch it alone.

Cathy Weeks
Mommy to Kivi Alexis 12/01

Sue wrote:

I find it interesting that, if I had to guess, that most of you would not
let children watch certain things on TV because of the content. But, from
what I am reading here, content in a book is okay. Why is that? Is it
because when you see something it's real to a child, but if he reads it and
doesn't know what the meaning is, that they just gloss over it?

There are a lot of books out there that my kids *could* read, but because of
the content and where they are at tempermentally, I haven't let them read
it. My friend didn't want her 2nd grader reading Sounder because the dog was
killed. Her daughter's temperment was such that she would be really upset
over that. But, she *could* read it. I don't know, I guess I am of the
opinion to wait until they can understand the meaning of a book to read it
and not just because they can.

I agree that whether the child is emotionally/socially mature
enough to read the book should be a consideration. On the other hand,
I think there's a difference between reading something and seeing it.
Movies and TV are often much more graphic than the mental images a
child might associate with something, and the child has no control
over those images the way one does with a book. Even now, I can read
more things than I can watch. So, I'd be more liberal with reading
than with watching, but I would still consider the child's personality/
maturity even with books. Both my kids who are reading are pretty
tenderhearted when it comes to this sort of thing, so we are a bit
cautious.

Best wishes,
Ericka

In article .com,
"Cathy Weeks" wrote:

Define "younger child?" We read it to my stepson when he was about 8.5
or 9, and he loved it, nor does it seem like he was scarred by it. My
advice from the beginning was for the parent to pre-read the book, to
judge for the individual child.

I think I was imagining 6 or 7 as a "younger child".

And, as I've said, I never restricted what my children read to
themselves: if it was in the house and they wanted to read it, they
could.


There are two major scenes of violence, where Ender gets into fights
that he couldn't avoid. You find out that he committed genocide AFTER
the war was won - as far as he or anyone knew, he was playing on a
simulator. There are no scenes of horrific bloodshed. The whole point
of the discussion up to now is that the interpretation of what the book
is about is dependent on the age of a child. The younger child would
see the adventure, and the older would see the moral issues.

I guess it was the psychological manipulation of the children that was
most frightening -- and a younger child would likely not "get" that
part, anyway.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

dragonlady wrote:
In article .com,

I guess it was the psychological manipulation of the children that
was
most frightening

I definitely agree!

Cathy Weeks
Mommy to Kivi Alexis 12/01

"Cathy Weeks" wrote in message
So, how do you know when a child will understand the meaning of a book?
I mean, censoring based on something that might be destructive is one
thing, but censoring because they might not "get it" is quite another.
And you never know when that "get it" moment is.

I guess because I know my kids. Two of my children have comprehension
problems. I can tell when one watches TV by the questions she is asking.
Therefore I can gauge what she is able to comprehend and what she is not.
Most books are above her. We have gone through the Scholastic books and she
has read the synopsis about the books and most of them are definitely out of
her range and very disturbing for her. For some reason, I think that I know
when the "get it" moment will be by what kinds of things she picks out to
read. None of my kids are into Harry Potter, LOTR, Narnia or any of those
kinds of books. They are way above them. Maybe one day, but definitely not
now.
--
Sue (mom to three girls)

In article ,
Kevin Karplus wrote:

I originally though this way about several books, but my son routinely
reads books he likes 3 or 4 times (more than that for ones he loves),
so now I no longer worry about "spoiling it for later", just about
whether he would like it (at some level) now. There were some books
that we gave him too soon, and which he did not then finish. Some of
these he came back to on his own a couple of years later.


Wow, I can't see my kids finding time to re-read books that many times,
even if they wanted to. So I guess I works out ok that they don't seem
to want to

My 11yo has quite a pile of of books he wants to read queued up. ;-)
He never re-reads anything. The 8yo does occasionally re-read, but
there seems to be plenty for him to read without my needing to suggest
books that might better be "saved" for later.

--Robyn

In article ,
Barbara Bomberger wrote:

by the time my children were in the third grade they were selecting
their own books from a variety of sources - the library, picking out a
book at the bookstore, going to the school library. On occasion I
would pick up a book I thought said child might like, but I was
generally past selecting or offering.



Schedules being what they are, I often end up at the library with only
my youngest, so I often pick up a pile of likely candidates and bring
them home for my older kids. They usually read some and reject others,
but I do end up implicitly "suggesting" books to read by the selections
that I bring home. They seem to appreciate that. They choose books
from school too, but the selection is a little more limited, and I do
think that I often come home with books they might not have found on
their own.

I come up with ideas based on what my friends' kids have enjoyed, what
the children's librarian suggests, award-winners, etc.

--Robyn

On 2005-04-03, Robyn Kozierok wrote:
In article ,
Kevin Karplus wrote:

I originally though this way about several books, but my son routinely
reads books he likes 3 or 4 times (more than that for ones he loves),
so now I no longer worry about "spoiling it for later", just about
whether he would like it (at some level) now. There were some books
that we gave him too soon, and which he did not then finish. Some of
these he came back to on his own a couple of years later.


Wow, I can't see my kids finding time to re-read books that many times,
even if they wanted to. So I guess I works out ok that they don't seem
to want to

Well, he's a fast reader and he spends almost all his waking time
reading (when he isn't in school). We stopped in the library today to
get 5 or 6 books and he bought also a couple of discarded kids' books
(one was the first Bailey School Kids book, I forget what the other
one was, but it was another short one). We stopped downtown for pizza
and pasta and then walked home. He'd finished both books by the time
we got home.

The lightweight books he rarely re-reads, but the ones he likes (like
the Harry Potter books) he reads many times. He's been that way since
he started reading---in kindergarten he could not stop reading Magic
Schoolbus books.

When I was a kid I always wanted new books that I hadn't read before,
but he seems equally happy with a new one or an old familiar. It's
probably a good thing, since we probably couldn't keep him supplied
with enough books if he only read them once.

------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
(Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.

"Robyn Kozierok" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Barbara Bomberger wrote:

by the time my children were in the third grade they were selecting
their own books from a variety of sources - the library, picking out a
book at the bookstore, going to the school library. On occasion I
would pick up a book I thought said child might like, but I was
generally past selecting or offering.



Schedules being what they are, I often end up at the library with only
my youngest, so I often pick up a pile of likely candidates and bring
them home for my older kids. They usually read some and reject others,
but I do end up implicitly "suggesting" books to read by the selections
that I bring home. They seem to appreciate that. They choose books
from school too, but the selection is a little more limited, and I do
think that I often come home with books they might not have found on
their own.

Same here. With everything else we have going on, family trips to the
library are pretty unfeasible during the school year. So I pick up a
selection for each child. DD usually reads everything I bring her just
because she's desperate for things to read. If she runs out of books,
she starts in on our magazines. The books I bring home for DS aren't
as fun. He's really into the Magic Treehouse books which he gets
from school, so I usually get him easy reader books that he can read
to us.


Bizby


I come up with ideas based on what my friends' kids have enjoyed, what
the children's librarian suggests, award-winners, etc.

--Robyn