Is this book appropriate for 4th graders?

"Welches" wrote in message
...

"Tori M" wrote in message
et...

"Jeanne" wrote in message
. ..
Tori M wrote:
If this book had come into my house I wouldnt have let my kids read it.
I am homeschooling them though so I guess the teacher wouldnt assign it
:P


Tori

Are you not "assigning" it because you think your children are too
sensitive for the intense scene, or because you think the subject matter
is inappropriate for 4th graders? I'm just wondering.

1. I dont think Bonnie would do well with the subject. She is very
sensitive. Xavier I dont know yet, he can be sensitive but in differant
ways.

2. I really think there is enough going on in most kids lives to not have
books required where 40 kids die. I am a little shocked that the book
was actualy written to that age level. It isnt even that I dont think
kids should read books that have sad things in it. I just dont think 9 is
the right target age for that book.

When I was 9 I was in 3rd grade. I dont remember what books I read at
that time. Probably Judy Blume and The little house on the prairie
books. Sometime arround then I also read the Anne Of Green Gables serries
and more by the same author. I can not think of her name *sigh* I am
trying to remember where I read the books. LOL some I may have read when
I turned 10.
LM Mongomery wasn't it?
But I can remember finding "Blubber" (Judy Blume) upsetting at 9,
I dont think I read that one. I can not picture the cover and they changed
the cover since I was 9.
#1 was

Why was I so frightened in Bedknobs and broomsticks? :-)

LOL I have kids movies that scare me. I cant read anything with ghosts in
it still.

The only adult book I can remember being really upset with at that sort
of age was the Life of Corrie Ten Boom who was in a concentration camp
during the war for harbouring Jews. The bit I found really upsetting was
when she is released. I coped with all the nasty incidents inside the camp
fine :-)
I should read this book. I am not really one for non fiction though. I
have never read Anne Franks Diary either.
Didn't enjoy animal farm at that age, but I didn't find it upsetting.
(still can't work out why people revear it )

I just found it creepy and unrealistic and remember it being verry
political.

Tori

Jeanne wrote:

Contemporary children books tend to be pretty harsh.

??! As compared to what? Compared to the past,
most are pretty tame! We may have had a blip where
things were more sanitized for kids, but heck, even
Bambi's mother dies. Fairy tales in their original
form are downright horrifying. Tales to scare children
were de rigeur.

Best wishes,
Ericka

On Feb 22, 9:57 am, Clisby wrote:
bizby40 wrote:
"Marie" wrote in message
...

"Tori M" wrote in message
...

WOW I was not assigned these books until jr high or highschool. I
find both inapropriate for 4th graders. I actualy read both. I
disliked both. I very rarely liked the suggested reading books that
the teachers picked though.
At our last parent-teacher conference, Emma's English teacher told us
some of the 5th-6th graders are dying to read "To Kill A Mockingbird" in
their literature circle (the classes are split up into groups of 4-5
kids who read and discuss the same book.) For assigned reading, they
go by the school district's recommended reading list, and "To Kill A
Mockingbird" isn't until 9th grade. So they assured the kids they'd get
to it eventually - but not this year. My husband, looking completely
baffled, asked, "If they want to read it, why don't they just read it?"

I thought maybe they were too lazy to read something that wasn't
assigned, but after reading this thread - who knows? Odd though it
would seem to me, maybe there are parents who wouldn't let a 5th or 6th
grader read "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Shaina's in 9th grade, honors English. They read "Mockingbird" at the
beginning of the year, and they just finished "Lord of the
Flies." (She reports liking the latter, finding the former rather
dull. [As did I actually -- the movie is better.])

Naomi

"Marie" wrote in message
...
"Tori M" wrote in message
...
WOW I was not assigned these books until jr high or highschool. I find
both inapropriate for 4th graders. I actualy read both. I disliked
both. I very rarely liked the suggested reading books that the teachers
picked though.

It seems that alot of parents here are underestimating what 4th graders
understand. I remember very clearly when I was that age, I wasn't some
kind of moron whose world fell apart when I read something sad, gross or
scary!! I now have the problem of deciding whether to let my own 4th
grader read Stephen King as she is begging me everyday. She's read most of
R.L. Stine's books and wants to move up to something "real", as she calls
it. And it's the sex in the books that is stopping me from handing them
over, not the scariness/sadness in them. I was in 7th grade when I started
reading King, Dean Koontz and books of that genre, but looking back I
would have been find had I started earlier. I just never was exposed to it
until I met my best friend in 7th grade.
Marie

I dont think Bonnie would do well with the goosebump stories. I have not
read them because I know that I personaly can not handle it.

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
Marie wrote:
"Tori M" wrote in message
...
WOW I was not assigned these books until jr high or highschool. I find
both inapropriate for 4th graders. I actualy read both. I disliked
both. I very rarely liked the suggested reading books that the teachers
picked though.

It seems that alot of parents here are underestimating what 4th graders
understand.

I think so. Mine have been rather tender-hearted,
but I don't think my current 4th grader would be phased by
that book. I also think that some are underestimating the
number of sad or stressful events in some of the books
mentioned as just fine for 4th graders. Some terrible
things happen in books like the Little House books or the
Anne of Green Gables books and others. Just because the
genre seems more friendly doesn't mean that the kids don't
identify with the characters and go through some gut-wrenching
scenes.
I do think there are some boundaries, but it's
very unclear to me that this book is out of bounds for
4th graders.

Maybe I am just leary about this book as a worrier. I tend to dwell on
these stories. I think there is a differance between something that
happened in the past, and most likely wont happen to me and a futuristic
type of it COULD happen. I have issues with obviously fake sci/fi movies
like Armagedon and The Core and The Day after Tomorrow as well.

I dont think there shouldnt be anything sad in kids books but to enter a
scenario so deep I think is uncalled for at that age. I read Charlottes Web
and cried my eyes out. I read Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows and
cried my eyes out. The 3rd and finaly time I read Where the Red Fern Grows
I was in 6th grade and finished it on the bus and I cried so much at the end
that other kids thought my real dog died. I still would read any of those
to my kids.

Tori

Ericka Kammerer wrote:
Jeanne wrote:

Contemporary children books tend to be pretty harsh.

??! As compared to what? Compared to the past,
most are pretty tame! We may have had a blip where
things were more sanitized for kids, but heck, even
Bambi's mother dies. Fairy tales in their original
form are downright horrifying. Tales to scare children
were de rigeur.

Okay. I stand corrected.

wrote:
On Feb 22, 9:57 am, Clisby wrote:

bizby40 wrote:

"Marie" wrote in message
...

"Tori M" wrote in message
...

WOW I was not assigned these books until jr high or highschool. I
find both inapropriate for 4th graders. I actualy read both. I
disliked both. I very rarely liked the suggested reading books that
the teachers picked though.

At our last parent-teacher conference, Emma's English teacher told us
some of the 5th-6th graders are dying to read "To Kill A Mockingbird" in
their literature circle (the classes are split up into groups of 4-5
kids who read and discuss the same book.) For assigned reading, they
go by the school district's recommended reading list, and "To Kill A
Mockingbird" isn't until 9th grade. So they assured the kids they'd get
to it eventually - but not this year. My husband, looking completely
baffled, asked, "If they want to read it, why don't they just read it?"

I thought maybe they were too lazy to read something that wasn't
assigned, but after reading this thread - who knows? Odd though it
would seem to me, maybe there are parents who wouldn't let a 5th or 6th
grader read "To Kill a Mockingbird."


Shaina's in 9th grade, honors English. They read "Mockingbird" at the
beginning of the year, and they just finished "Lord of the
Flies." (She reports liking the latter, finding the former rather
dull. [As did I actually -- the movie is better.])

Naomi


But if for some reason she had wanted to read "Mockingbird" when she was
a 5th or 6th grader, would you have told her she couldn't? I'm not
arguing that it ought to be assigned in 5th or 6th grade; but I, like my
husband, was surprised at the idea of kids who wouldn't just go read
whatever they wanted.

Clisby

Tori M wrote:

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...

Marie wrote:

"Tori M" wrote in message
...

WOW I was not assigned these books until jr high or highschool. I find
both inapropriate for 4th graders. I actualy read both. I disliked
both. I very rarely liked the suggested reading books that the teachers
picked though.

It seems that alot of parents here are underestimating what 4th graders
understand.

I think so. Mine have been rather tender-hearted,
but I don't think my current 4th grader would be phased by
that book. I also think that some are underestimating the
number of sad or stressful events in some of the books
mentioned as just fine for 4th graders. Some terrible
things happen in books like the Little House books or the
Anne of Green Gables books and others. Just because the
genre seems more friendly doesn't mean that the kids don't
identify with the characters and go through some gut-wrenching
scenes.
I do think there are some boundaries, but it's
very unclear to me that this book is out of bounds for
4th graders.


Maybe I am just leary about this book as a worrier. I tend to dwell on
these stories. I think there is a differance between something that
happened in the past, and most likely wont happen to me and a futuristic
type of it COULD happen.


Now that's an interesting point. I think just the opposite - if
something actually has happened in the past, why would I doubt that it
could happen again? Hypothetical futuristic scenarios, or fantasy
tales, are far less disturbing to me.

Clisby



I have issues with obviously fake sci/fi movies
like Armagedon and The Core and The Day after Tomorrow as well.

I dont think there shouldnt be anything sad in kids books but to enter a
scenario so deep I think is uncalled for at that age. I read Charlottes Web
and cried my eyes out. I read Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows and
cried my eyes out. The 3rd and finaly time I read Where the Red Fern Grows
I was in 6th grade and finished it on the bus and I cried so much at the end
that other kids thought my real dog died. I still would read any of those
to my kids.

Tori

"Marie" wrote in message
...
"bizby40" wrote in message
. ..
R. L. Stine's books are....well, fun for kids, but not great
writing. They're trite and come across as sort of babyish. There
are lots of very good books, much better written, at the juvenile
and young adult level. You really don't have to jump straight from.
R. L. Stine to Stephen King!

What would you recommend? The only horror writers I know for this
age group is R. L. Stine so I could use some suggestions.
Marie

I'm the wrong person to ask because I have the world's worst memory!
I went off the recommended reading lists they had at the library, and
while we didn't end up with a lot that would qualify as horror, she
did seem to enjoy them. There seemed to be a lot that dealt with
ghosts of one kind or another.

She did read the R.L. Stine books that were written for older teens,
and didn't like the sometimes graphic violence in them.

Bizby

"Tori M" wrote in message
et...
I dont think Bonnie would do well with the goosebump stories. I have not
read them because I know that I personaly can not handle it.

Wow, Goosebumps seems so mild lol My 10 year old just loves them, and has
moved up to what I think is the highest level of Stine's books. But she's
like me, we both love scary stories (books and/or movies). I can remember my
mom watching a movie called "Dr. Giggles", and letting me watch all the
scary parts but not letting me watch the parts in between b/c of all the
cursing and sex scenes. My first scary movie was "Carrie" and that's when I
was maybe 7 or so.
Marie