One of our favourite places to go as a family has always been to the library.
When the girls were really small we lived in downtown Toronto and didn't own a car. And our apartment was small. Very small. You couldn't walk anywhere without tripping over toys.
I went stir crazy if I stayed indoors all day, so everyday we went on an outing. Sometimes to the YMCA, sometimes to the museum, to playgroup, or to a little petting farm in the heart of the city.
But twice a week we ventured to the library, and we read books. Well, I read them. The girls knocked them off of the shelves. But at least they interacted with them!
Choosing kids' books when the kids are toddlers is easy. The books aren't that long.
But when your children graduate to chapter books, things get trickier. How do you know if a book shares your value system? And there aren't that many Christian books around. Eventually kids read through them.
We also try to find books to coincide with whatever we're studying in our homeschool, and that's even trickier, because history can often be distorted for political gain today. So how do you find something you trust?
I'm really not sure. I've tried a variety of book lists, at homeschooling sites. And I've tried librarians' advice. But I don't always trust it.
For instance, I loved Sarah, Plan and Tall, so I assumed that I would approve of all of her books. But some of them deal with weird life after death themes, so we had to steer away from them.
Or a book may have won an award, but does that mean it's good? Many of today's books try to bond with their readers by trashing parents. If we can talk about how awful school is and how awful life is and how awful parents are for having rules, the thought goes, kids will realize that we understand what it means to be a kid!
I don't mind some of that, when it's cleverly done or intrinsic to the plot, but often it just seems like the author is trying to be "cool" and trash talk adults to appeal to kids. And quite frankly I don't want my children reading that.
Even Christians have suggested books that I don't think are great because their kids are reading them in school, or because they're bestsellers. But then I take a look and it has mature themes, or fourth-graders dating, and stuff like that. It may be "real" in the youth culture, but that's a culture I want my kids to emulate.
And, quite frankly, it doesn't make for good literature. C.S. Lewis famously said that a book that is worth reading at 10 is worth reading at 50, and too many modern books (and remember, he was writing fifty years ago) try to bond with a child by being about modern social issues rather than about a story. So a book will be "about divorce" or "about bullying", rather than a beautiful, poignant story which may have those themes. Do you see the difference? So often people today write a book about bullying, and kids know they're being lectured to. The moral has to come out of the plot; it can't be something that the author is trying to force. And many books today try to force themes or morals, or they try to force youth culture. And both extremes aren't good.
So I'm now having a hard time choosing books, because you can't always judge a book by its cover! Sometimes it's only been by reading into it that I've seen what is wrong. I once bought my daughter a Philip Pullman mystery series when she was younger because it was highly recommended by the bookstore owner, only to find out that Pullman considers himself an atheist evangelist who tries to trash God whenever he can, and wrote in this case about glorified teenage pregnancy.
Boy did I feel stupid.
What do you do? I'd really like to know, because my daughter reads voraciously, and I can't pre-read every book she gets out of the library. At this point she's mature enough to deal with the Pullmans and the crap, but it's not just that. It's not that I want to censor the books, exactly; it's that I want to find a way to identify the gems! So if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them!
There's a debate going on over at Crunchy Conservative about the Junie B. Jones books.
For those of you who have never heard of Junie, she began as a kindergartner with bad grammar, a tendency to mischief, and hilariously funny. She is not in any way a child that you would want your own children to emulate. She's bossy, quick to bully, and rude. But she does it such a charming way that you find yourselves laughing.
The books are chapter books, and for kids who are finally able to read on their own, they're often used as first readers. Junie has graduated from kindergarten all the way to grade 2 by now, I think, though we only read the kindergarten ones and a few of the grade 1 ones before my own girls grew out of them.
Over at Crunchy Cons, they're wondering whether these books are good for kids or not. I think this comment sums up my feelings:
The first time I read a Junia B. Jones book to my daughter, I didn't really like it. The grammar was bad, so I was always correcting it. She seemed to be setting a bad example, etc... In fact, I don't think we even finished it and I swore we would NEVER read those books. Similar to the quoted author's experience.
However, I absolutely LOVE the books now. My daughter's teacher read them to her in kindergarten and she had 1st grader friends who liked to read them, so I tried again. I read them out loud to my daughter, who is entering the first grade, and just enjoy acting out the stories. You can do a lot with voice inflection. They are so entertaining. My daughter knows what is appropriate behavior, so we have had some discussions about how Junia could act better. I find myself laughing out loud at her antics. It's not so different from Beverly Cleary's Ramona character (those beloved books I read as a child). My daughter loves reading them on her own as well, which I'm only too happy to encourage since I want her to to have a love for reading. So, I encourage parents of young children to read 2-3 of the Junia books before giving up on them completely. I now find them simply delightful.
Now please remember, I am really picky about what my kids read. I don't let them read junk. But I didn't really have a problem with these ones, though many of my friends did.
I never found that my girls copied the grammar or the behaviour. They read the books to find what Junie did wrong. And I certainly didn't notice any uptick in rudeness after they read the books. They just loved reading.
I don't normally let my kids read fluff, but they were just starting out. And they moved from Junie to Ramona. The Ramona books are much longer, and the character is much better. She's not exactly rude, she's just misunderstood, and it makes her act out. But they're lovely books. I read them as a child and loved them, and now my kids love them, too.
But it is tough to figure out what to let your kids read. Do the books have to reflect every one of your values? Do they have to have proper behaviour? I figure as long as they have a world view that I approve of, it's generally okay. For instance, in the Junie B. Jones books, when she does something wrong she is punished and she's told she's wrong. There's not an effort to let her get away with things.
I don't let my kids read Harry Potter because I think the drive for magic that can be used to give you power over people is not a healthy thing, and can lead to some unhealthy imaginations and dabblings. But now that my oldest daughter is almost 14, I would let her. I just think a certain maturity is necessary.
The main thing we have stayed away from is The Baby-Sitters Club, or all the pre-teen romance books which have no redeeming literary value. There are enough good books out there that we haven't had to resort to that. My 11-year-old is now working her way through both Noel Streatfield's Ballet Shoes and Pride and Prejudice. My 14-year-old is addicted to Beverly Lewis.
So what do you think? Is Junie okay or not? Or does it depend on your child?
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
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