Willard price books -DS (nearly 8) engrossed!

[betweenmarchandmay]

My DS is 8 next month and he is engrossed in Willard price books.

I remember them from my own childhood - so much information about animals! Anyone else's kids love them? They're so old but classics never die I suppose!

I also loved these growing up, but after reading this I'm not sure I will let my boys read them when they're old enough.

OP, has your son tried things like the White Giraffe by Lauren St John? It's an adventure set in modern-day Africa. I think there are a few of them.

I loved the Willard Price books at around the same age and the only thing I took away from them as a child was a love of adventure books and an improved knowledge of wildlife.

Interestingly, my parents didn't censor my reading at all (I suspect it just never occurred to them) and I was very advanced. I'd read most of the Ian Fleming James Bond books by 10, plus some other lurid stuff. However, I did also read things like Jane Eyre, a shedload of Daphne Du Maurier, the bible, various biographies and a book about the Anastasia fraud, all of this when I was under 12. I honestly don't remember any of this influencing the way I behaved or thought, it was all just endlessly fascinating even if I probably didn't grasp some of the finer points.

I can't really see a problem with an 8 year old reading the books now if someone reminds them that the books were written in a time when things were different.

I don't really agree with censoring what my DC read either, but (thinking out loud), would I want them to read this sort of thing if their father or I were black? Probably not.

I loved these books as a child and I don't think I internalised any of the more negative aspects (certainly don't remember them). However that's easy to say as I'm white and am not on the receiving end of racism.

Part of me thinks there are so many brilliant books being published every year, why not find an alternative.

I might re-read a WP to see just how bad it is. My eldest is 2 so I have a while to figure it out!

Ds read lots of Willard price without absorbing the values. We always found it hilarious how Hal would be in the middle of being chased by an irate hippo or other scarey animal yet still would find time to deliver a 4 page lecture to roger about the animal in question.

I loved them too, and have to admit that I have no recollection at all of the unacceptable attitudes, so I assume they made no impression on me whatsoever, as I'm not actually a raving racist or misogynist now.

In a way you could argue it was worse when I was reading them back in the 70s, because you could also many of those concepts expressed on TV and the world around you as well, so there was less of a counter-balance.

At least OPs son is reading them at a time when these attitudes are widely recognised as being unacceptable. The concepts of banning or censoring books always make me a bit uneasy. it is something that I associate with totalitarian regimes, not a civilized society.