Not to want the DDs to read any more dismal, turgid, depressing shit written by Jacqueline Wilson?

[MrsSchadenfreude]

I can't stand it any longer. Death, destruction, broken families, mum's boyfriend beating her up. Happy just doesn't exist. If parents are married, they are disfunctional, or have ishoos.

I wouldn't mind the odd one, interspersed with other stuff, but it's like fucking drugs in this house. Anything else is read perfunctorily before rushing back to worship on the altar of Saint Jacqueline of the Sorrows.

We borrowed the book cd of Lola Rose for a car journey once. I couldn't bear to listen to it. Had to turn it off.

pointydog - we listen to cd's of Just William on long car journeys. Bloody brilliant and they entertain us all.

Pointydog - the lack of male role models wouldn't normally occur to me either. It is just that they are so absent from JW that it is really obvious.

MrsS - they are absent because in the worlds she writes about, they largely ARE absent...don't you want her to read about all different kinds of lives? Some with one parent, some two, some gay couples, some mixed race, some adopted etc etc etc to reflect the real world we live in?

My dd read them at age 12-ish. (Because she's not educated in English she's always read English books aimed for slightly younger children)

She loved them and it was an eye-opener to learn how life can be for other children. I've read them too - I think 9 is probably too young emotionally for a child to get the best from JW's stuff.

I think MrsS has a point, hully - sure, there are lots of children who have no positive male role model in their immediate family, but growing up in a universe where no positive role model exists at all is mighty unusual, and not to be encouraged as a way of going about life.

I am all for children learning about different ways of life (and am fortunate that my DC see and know all sorts in their lives), but I am not at all convinced that DCs should be exposed to too much doom and gloom.

It depends on whether the DC wants to be exposed to doom and gloom. If they don't they won't read it. I have my mother staying at the moment and despite my hundreds of books I have had to take her to the library to choose her own-she rejects most of mine as 'doom and gloom'. We are all different and DCs are no exception.
I feel sorry for DCs these days, their lives are strictly regulated, parents want to tell them what to think and now even their reading matterial has to be deemed suitable by the parent!
If it is in the children's library it is suitable IMO and they should have a free choice. By all means recommend, or buy them,good literature but don't censor the rest. Think how irritated you would be if you picked up a promising book and someone said 'you can't have that, it is doom and gloom, not lives I want you to know about and there are no suitable role models'!

I agree that Just William-read by Martin Jarvis is perfect for long car journeys.

growing up in a universe where no positive role model exists at all is mighty unusual

No, it really really isn't.

And while one doesn't necessarily have to tour the slums of Mumbai every morning, I think children should be able to pick up and read absolutely any book they want, they soon put it down again if they don't like it.

On a lighter note, I read my dc The Silver Sword followed by the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas a couple of years ago and they did both ask afterwards if we might have a little break from the Holocaust..

I agree that Just William-read by Martin Jarvis is perfect for long car journeys

yy

I think DCs need guidance; that doesn't mean they need their reading matter (or anything else) dictated to them, but exposing them to too much doom/gloom/violence/negativity comes, inevitably, at the opportunity cost of exposing them to more uplifting material.

You sound like my mother, hullygully, who is still living in a 1950s post-colonialist world. Have you been to India or China recently?

I disagree. We have hundreds of kids books about the house, my old ones, dh's old ones, plus a full range of sad, happy, uplifting, horror, adventure, comedy, action etc etc etc. They read all of them and get something different from each.

Yes, Bonsoir, I have. I speak of what I know. Have you?

The only difference with Mumbai is that they have hoovered up a lot of the more central slums and relocated them on the outskirts.

Yes! And the energy for building a new world is infectious! None of this lazing about feeling sorry for yourself and thinking that other people can do the hard work that the old world indulges in permanently!

We have loads of books-library-carboots -charity-new- and to my mind if you really want your DC to enjoy reading you leave it up to them. Nothing kills it more than a worthy parent.
DCs are not stupid-if you discuss books with a whole class they are very perceptive. Books are a very personal thing-while you are reading them the author is speaking directly to you. I belong to a book group and we all get entirely different things from a book and sometimes one person hates it so much they don't finish and yet others put it down as their best book ever! DCs are no different and your DCs taste may be quite different from yours.
I am in my 50's and yet my mother is still trying to tell me that I read too much 'doom and gloom'! I pay no attention and I didn't pay any when I was 10yr either.(although funnily enough I don't remember her doing it then-just trying to wean me off Enid Blyton).

Can somebody tell me what 'yy' means?

Absolutely! Stop starving to death and just get on with it. Always an effective exhortation.

Are you for real?

By the time dcs get to the age where they can read JW, surely it is not entirely a question of "exposing them" to X and "exposing them" to Y. "Expose" sounds a very passive word for a junior school child. By the age of 9-10, dd had a library card and could find her own way to the local library. Of course, I recommended good books to her, I frequently said (and still do) "I think you'd enjoy this one". But that is a long way from actually controlling her whole world of reading.

And just because she read all the JW this does not mean that she spent her childhood in a world made up entirely of doom and gloom; it was a phase that she went through and even at that time she read other stuff too, lots of it.

DD got JW's autobiography from her school library and it goes a long way to explaining why JW writes what she does.

The 'expose' is all to do with control. I agree-let them loose in the library -and I don't see why you don't just choose your own books and leave them to it.

Re positive male role models in JW:
The dads in Cat Mummy and Double Act are both solid good guys. Not perfect, but devoted, thoughtful and caring. The Bio dad in The Suitcase Kid is loving if distracted, the grandad in The Lottie Project is strict and not very involved, but more sensible than some! Robin in The Lottie Project is a nice guy (but not a major character).

The dad in Little Darlings is a charming rogue, but very very self-centred, too.

JW doesn't write stories about "Nice little perfect families". That's not her area. I imagine that you can get that plenty elsewhere if you want.

The new stepdad-on-the-horizon in Cookie is nice too. And there is nothing wrong with the Dad in Kiss.

Anyway, most women aren't exactly perfect role models either, most of them are just clueless.

I think yy just means 'yes yes'.

Do I need to hide my JW collection now 5yo dd is starting to read?
On the one hand I want to shelter her from knowing about tragedy for another few years, on the other I read lots of Victorian orphan lit at that age and it didn't do me any harm (I think).