What is appropriate in childrens literature?

I agree with Pixie. Dd is 8 and I am thinking that I will let her read the first Harry Potter soon. I have them all. However the others I will hold fire on.

A 7/8 year old reading Harry Potter when it first came out would have had to have waited 12 months before the next one was published therefore by book 4 they would be about 11/12 - secondary school age.

The books grew with the original readers.

God, the Roly-Poly Pudding still scares me! Honestly, it terrified me - I still have the emotional scars. Hated Jeremy Fisher too - the bit where the minnows nibble his toes and the stickleback jumps all over him.

My tendency is to go with DCs reactions. For example, DD went through a phase of being scared by Owl Babies - I think because the mother flies off and they're left alone in the dark wood. But no-one would say that's inappropriate for young children would they. On the other hand, she loves some of the (adapted) Grimms' Fairy Tales that we have - Hansel and Gretel for example doesn't seem to bother her at all.

I think suggesting that death, sex and destruction is inappropriate in children's literature is denying that those things exist in real life and they will become exposed to them at some point. Better to have that exposure in safety through a book than for real!

The sexual element in HP is fairly mild, I'd say. In book 5 he finally gets to take a girl to a coffee shop and try out a chaste kiss. As far as I can work out, he is still a virgin at the end of the series. We certainly aren't treated to any insights in his sex life, apart from some excruciatingly bad writing concerning his feelings of jealousy ("the creature in his chest roared with approval").

The Three Jays, Jill and multiduninous Pullen-Thompsons, I think. I was a totally omnivorous reader, and was always desperate for books. So at the same time I was reading the Brontes, Jane Austen and various books written by the 19th centuary colonial administrators of Malaya. It was a slightly odd upbringing, but I have one hell of a vocabulary!

cyteen - tom kitten!

neversaydie - jackie, jill and jinny? aww i miss the pony books

DS and I both sobbed through the chapter where the girl in Bridge to Terebithia died! That said, it was an excellent book, and he got a lot out of it.

My girlhood reading was largely horsey - and mercifully long out of print. Then I discovered science fiction and never really looked back.

Ha ha I don't know what was so fascinating about it, especially since I was/am a total cat lover and was always bugging mum to get us a kitten...pretty sure not for pastry-rolling purposes though.

Cyteen reveals her warped personality to all.

Wonders what own childhood-reading would reveal about her - probably an extremely high interest level for food (The Famous Five, Malory Towers etc all seemed to totally revolve around food). Oh gosh and I soooo wanted a tuck box...and a lacrosse stick (have never seen a lacrosse stick..I clearly move in the wrong circles).

HopeForTheBest, that BP story about the kitten being rolled up in dough was my absolute favourite thing when I was very small. Every time my mum took us to the library I would straightaway seek it out and read it over and over again.

neversaydie - don't blame you about bridge to terabithia - saw that at the cinema - bf and i cried our eyes out but her 9 year old dd was fine and said 'don't worry, its not real!'

see now i've thought about it properly it was the snow queen that affected me the most...and animals of farthing wood

funny how much more emotive books you read as a child are - can't remeber feeling that strongly about any films/tv

A lot of the books I read as a child were inherited from my mother/uncles and my grandfather. Those from my mothers era still read pretty much OK, although are rather dated (think Swallows and Amazons and Silver Snaffles). The ones from my Grandfather's generation were either indescribably grim (Brothers Grim, Hans Christian Anderson) or incredibly twee (The Cuckoo Clock, by Mrs Molesworth). Beatrix Potter manages both!

The books actually published when I was a child seem to have dated worse than the earlier ones, but I think that is probably because only the 'classics' actually survived from earlier generations.

My DS enjoyed Swallows and Amazons, but on the whole, I think modern children's books are far better, as well as more relevant to modern children. However, after I started reading 'Bridge to Terebithia' to DS, then aged 8, without reading it to myself first (the heroine dies) I was much more careful about vetting stuff first. That said, DS went back to Bridge to Terebithia and read it to himself, so it was obviously meeting some need.

Where I agonise is when stories are still very much part of our cultural history, yet the originals are so gruesome or violent that they are unacceptable in a modern context. Still muddling through with that one, although as DS gets older, he gets a lot more freedom choosing his own reading matter.

Incidentally, the only restriction I put on Harry Potter was that he had to read the book before he was allowed to see the film. The later books are so turgid it has pretty much self regulated!

It was 'The Red Shoes' that gave me nightmares!

i also don't agree with censoring literature - we pretty much all read the fairy stories when we were little and survived.

also i think children can sometimes seperate reality from fantasy more easily as long as its packaged in the right way

that said...rumplestiltskin gave me nightmares!

Yes Seeker - agree entirely.

I think it's me you're quoting in your OP, zanzibar. In general, I don't agree with censoring books for children. I do agree with the people who say that the danger is putting them off reading by giving them stuff that's too hard for them.

I think thought, that my original thread was more about the fact that we seem to want to ruch children on these days, and just because a child can read Harry Potter, in terms of decoding it, it doesn't mean they should. They will get so much more out of books intended for older children when they are the right age for them.

And also, I think I was talking about Harry Potter being used as some sort of benchmark - there are thousands of other books that aren't part of a billion dollar industry!

And people always cite Grimm's fairy Tales - I would be amazed if many children read the original versions any more. And as Miggsie says, the emotional investment is different.

Kids love dark stuff. They are drawn to it. Obviously you have to make the decision as to what is suitable for your own kid as they are all entirely different, but I don''t think you can deem things inappropriate.

'I am very much against censoring books for children - again, providing you as the parent are there to talk to them about things, so they are not experiencing it in a vacuum.'

Exactly. Many things are acceptable if you do this. Jacqueline Wilson, for example.

Yes janeite, you have said what I wanted to say but couldn't

Neither Grimm nor HP had/have KS1 children as their target audience and certainly the later HP books are too complex, imho, for KS1 children, simply in terms of how big they get and the numbers of characters involved, let alone any 'issues' in there.

Having said that, all good literature has to be about conflict and things like Roald Dahl also have adults behaving badly etc. Exploring these issues in stories allows children a safe outlet for feelings of anger etc towards their parents, as well as letting them see a world beyond their own and preparing them for the idea that bad things can happen to good people etc.

It is why I also think that we should allow children to watch/read the news (selected items) - providing we are there to talk about it to them and help them to filter it.

I am very much against censoring books for children - again, providing you as the parent are there to talk to them about things, so they are not experiencing it in a vacuum.

I really can't imagine any of the literature here being damaging to kids - nor have i seen any academic research suggesting that books can cause harm. The only danger is that you give children books that are too difficult, which puts them off reading. I basically think that kids should be allowed to read anything they want. I take a completely different line with visual media and the internet, where there is plenty of good evidence about harmful effects.

One of my favourite books as a young child was a collection of Hans Christian Anderson stories. They really are quite warped - full of loneliness, thwarted ambition, cruelty and the meek being crushed beneath the heel of the ruthless. I'll still be reading them to DS when he's old enough, though; as a child I found them fascinating and spent a lot of time pondering the emotional undercurrents.

DS is only little so I don't have any experience yet of treading the line between acceptable and not, but I am very wary of sanitising his world too much.

but harry potter books aren't really aimed at ks1 kids, are they